NFF- Hiccup's encounter with the god of night
by Puffin777
Summary: Half dragon hiccup story. expanded from a story beginning from Nightfuryfanfic
1. Chapter 1

**Hiccup's encounter with the god of night.**

 **A/N this story is based off a beginning of story provided by the amazing Nightfuryfanfic. Produced with permission.**

 **Chapter 1.**

It had been 3 months since the defeat of the red death and the village of Berk was still rejoicing in their victory and new peace.

All except one. the hero, Hiccup: he was flying around enjoying an afternoon flight alone with his dragon and best friend. No one else to bother him, enjoying the spray of the ocean, the wind in his hair and the adrenaline from the breath-taking stunts.

The sun dipped low on the horizon as the rider and dragon came to a steady glide. "alright bud best get back to Berk its getting late" And with short grunt of acknowledgment the rider and the dragon turned north back to Berk. Suddenly was sharp ear piecing whistle that startled dragon and rider. But before they could even match it up to the cry of a night fury Hiccup was torn from Toothless back, claws ripping straight through his green tunic and piercing flesh causing him to cry out in pain.

Toothless fell from the sky helpless and crying out for his rider before splashing into the ocean just offshore of a small island. Meanwhile Hiccup was thrown to the ground on the small island with a loud thud and snap as his arm twisted horribly. As Hiccup scrambled up, heart pounding a mile a minute he tried to face his attacker.

As Hiccup got to his feet and regained his senses he realised he was staring into the very angry eyes of a night fury, causing Hiccup to stumble back in fright. As Hiccup tried to calm the dragon down Toothless dragged himself to shore and started a desperate run to his rider.

Meanwhile on Asgard, a god was watching the scene play out. He was the god of night, god to the night furies and he was desperately hoping that the boy survived. After all that boy was very important to the god of night as he tamed a night fury and stopped a war. Sadly, the god could only watch in horror as a plasma blast tore from the newcomer night fury's throat and impacted with the boy, hurling him several yards, and killing him instantly.

This caused the god of night to frantically pace he needed a way to save the boy back on the island. Toothless could only look on in horror, grief and rage as Hiccup, his rider, was blasted to death. he frantically scrambled to his rider hoping to god he was alive. But as he got to his rider he could smell the burning flesh and death in the air and with a roar of grief he turned to his rider's killer.

"why would you do that? What did he do!?" growled Toothless

"he was riding you like a beast of burden. You're a night fury. You should not stoop to those levels. I set you free" growled the unknown night fury.

"you just killed my rider, my best friend and took my flight away from me!" roared Toothless but before he could charge a massive wave of plasma appeared, sending both night furies flying. A man covered in a black robe with black hair and piercing blue eyes appeared. The god of night

"calm yourselves night furies" shouted the god of night causing both dragons to whimper in submission "Toothless, don't worry your rider will be saved. And for you night fury I should kill you right now for your stupidity and cruelness". And with that the god vanished into purple/blue mist and went into Hiccup.

suddenly Hiccup found himself in a white room with another being. "who are you and where am I?!" shouted Hiccup

"I am the god of night the god to the night fury and we are in your head. you were killed, remember?" said night

"y-ye-yea" stuttered Hiccup "but what do you want with me"

"to save you. You died unfairly, and you were a very important hero. But there is one problem: I can't save your human form" said night

"so how are you going save me" stuttered Hiccup in confusion.

"well Hiccup, I know you don't want to be another animal because then you can't return home or complete your destiny. But I can't save your entire human form, so I'm going to make you half night fury and infuse some of my energy into you, making you half god of night. But be warned, you will be given tremendous power and abilities but also changes to your appearance and habits. You will have new strength and weaknesses, you know, being half dragon. So, try avoiding dragon root and that kind of stuff. got that?"

"yea but why do I deserve this honour?"

"because you united two worlds. And one more thing: your name is now midnight because you're not really your parent's offspring anymore. You know, being half dragon and half god. but you can still go by Hiccup."

And with that he vanished. Appearing outside of Hiccups body and watching as Hiccup healed and changed to look older. and out of nowhere his tunic fixed and went purple, his trousers did the same. And then a completely black set of leather armour with a purple strike symbol appeared on his body with a Helmet like the night fury head. Then his eyes changed to dragon's eyes and several scales appeared across his body.

Then Toothless' s tail fin turned purple with a black strike symbol on along with the saddle going black. Then two sword hilts appeared, pitch black in colour, and attached to Hiccups belt. And with a flash of purple light it was over.

Hiccup gasped for breath as he came back.

"rise, midnight, half god of night and dragonkin." said night. And he was gone with a flash. Hiccup stumbled up, admiring himself. he looked at the two, now bowing, night furies.

"errrr you don't need to bow" stuttered Hiccup, trying to grab hold of the situation. But before his mind could get to grips he was assaulted with a barrage of licks. "Toothless stop! you know that doesn't wash out!"

After freeing himself from the clutches of the over enthusiastic night fury Hiccup wanted to know what he looked like. The god had said he now had changes to his appearance and he wanted to know more. When he looked into the water he didn't see anything different the first time, confused he looked again and noticed things like his eyes had changed, and his skin was much darker than before.

He was surprised by the changes but was thankful that it wasn't more noticeable. He slowly walked over to Toothless, so they could return to Berk. He regarded the new dragon with suspicion.

The other dragon addressed Hiccup (as midnight) with shame in himself. "midnight. I see that you view me as violent, while such a view is normal after my brash actions I beseech you to forget our differences. I Understand now that you mean no slavery on my people, I would like to escort you through your problems. Understand now that I offer my protection for your noble cause."

Hiccup was astonished at what the dragon had said, not at the offer contained within but the fact that he understood. He regarded Toothless with curiosity

"Toothless, can I now understand dragons? Did that dragon just offer me protection?"

Toothless bowed again and explained

"it would appear so Hiccup, and yes, that dragon did offer you protection. I trust him to keep his word, but I am a bit hesitant." He said with a slightly malicious look at the other night fury. The other night fury sighed and hung his head, he responded to Toothless.

"like I said, I am sorry for what I've done and prepared to make up for it by becoming your permanent escort on your journeys, my name is Shadewrath by the way"

Toothless was still a bit suspicious but after encouraging comments from Hiccup he warily accepted Shadewrath as escort for him and his rider. The group took off back in the direction of Berk, Hiccup knew that it would be hard explaining how he now had two night furies as well as changes to his appearance.

They arrived at the outskirts of Berk, Hiccup and Toothless started a circuit around the island as they planned what to do next when they arrived in Berk.

Shadewrath asked a question out of curiosity. "why are we flying around this Island?"

Hiccup responded. "this is Berk, my homeland, we are flying around because we don't know how to explain the changes that happened while we were away. As if on cue Astrid and Stormfly Flew up to the circling night furies, she was initially worried when she saw it was two night furies, but calmed down when she saw Hiccup riding one of them, she pulled up next to him

"what happened? Why is there another night fury and why…"?

Hiccup answered in a tone urging Astrid to calm down "we had a very complicated adventure, I can explain more when we land."

Astrid quietened down and the three dragons now glided into a clearing beside Hiccup's house. They landed on the soft grass and Hiccup and Astrid rushed inside to let Chief Stoick know the adventure which had ended up with Hiccup with one more night fury.

Once Chief Stoick had dressed he came to the dining room for the private discussion.

Astrid started off enthusiastically "Chief! Hiccup brought back another Night fury! Now we know that Toothless isn't the only one!"

Hiccup sighed as he realised he was going to have to explain the strange events leading to him getting a night fury as escort.

"So, me and Toothless were flying along when we encountered a night fury"

"the end?" chief Stoick wondered

Hiccup continued "not even close, at first this dragon attacked us, I died because of him."

Stoick was confused, the dragon had attacked and killed Hiccup. But hiccup was alive, and the dragon was his friend now, was Hiccup lying?

"yeah, yeah I know. It sounds crazy, but the dragon did attack me, and I did die. Luckily I met the god of night before I was lost forever, He healed me and made the dragon repentant. Sadly, however there was a price to pay, he couldn't save all my normal form, so he had to merge what was left with part of his spirit.

Stoick was laughing now, Hiccup met a god? What kind of nonsense is this? Hiccup just gave him a serious look.

"I am telling the truth, look at my eyes and my skin."

Stoick looked carefully at his son's eyes and gasped when he saw that they were now draconic, he looked at his bare hands in the light and saw they were much darker than they should be.

Hiccup continued again "Luckily it wasn't these features that changed, I now have abilities and powers I did not have before. Like being able to understand the speech of dragons, I haven't found anything else yet, but I know I have to avoid eels and dragon root now."

Now Hiccup had given his explanation he walked outside to the dragons again, the dragons noted his presence and turned to face him. After telling them that he was going to get some food both night furies took up position on both sides of him. Hiccup strode into the mead hall while gesturing for the dragons to have their fill at the dragon feeders at the sides of the room. Hiccup sat down at a table and prepared to have some meat.

He took up the meat, but something came over him and suddenly he only wanted to eat the beef and fish, raw. He was troubled by this change but decided to accept his instincts, he snuck into the storage area of the mead hall and stole some beef and fish. After devouring both he decided that was enough food and headed off back to the village.

Hiccup cleared the mead hall and headed back to his house, the night furies noticed his departure and charged out of the mead hall to take up their positions. Hiccup was surprised at this rush and asked a probing question

"why are you following me everywhere?"

Toothless gave a gummy smile at Shadewrath.

"Shadewrath wanted to make sure you were safe at all times, plus it's fun!"

Both dragons laughed as Hiccup continued back to the house. As he headed back to his bed he thought of the fact Shadewrath didn't have a bed.

"hey Shadewrath, do you need a bed"

Shadewrath replied "I already got one"

Hiccup was confused "how?"

Shadewrath gave a short laugh. "you guys took _so_ long to talk that Toothless started talking about his bed, since you were so busy I made one myself."

Hiccup was astounded at the dragon's brazen explanation of his bed,

"so, you just wandered off and made your bed at the cliffs? In the middle of a Viking village?!"

Shadewrath just gave a casual reply "yep."

Hiccup sighed again but they had reached the beds and the dragons were already preparing to go to sleep.

Hiccup smiled at this, he got in his bed and gave a small cheerful comment to the dragons.

"goodnight"

"goodnight Hiccup" they both replied.


	2. 2: encounters with Grimora

NFF- Hiccup's encounter with the god of night

A/N these chapters are hard to create but I can manage

Chapter 2

As the next day dawned Hiccup got ready for another day exploring the lands beyond the nest. Beforehand the nest had been the limit for map makers as the dragons stopped any safe passage through. After his Meal he went to Stoick to plan his route. The pair looked carefully at the map in front of them. they had to make sure the day long trip wasn't for nothing. This time Stoick suggested a course of north east from the nest. He was still quite shocked at Hiccup's change but reassured himself it was probably nothing to worry about.

Hiccup and his escorts left Berk for the nest. Hiccup was concentrated on flying and did not notice the pack of Grimora infected dragons below him. These dragons, under the control of the parasite, flew closer and prepared to attack the non-infected who they saw going overhead. As they came up the ever watchful Shadewrath sounded the alarm.

"Hiccup! Toothless! Infected dragons below!"

Hiccup and Toothless looked down to see the pack of infected coming closer. These dragons did not look friendly with the liquid fire on their lips and the strange look in their eyes. Toothless and Shadewrath immediately began a barrage of fire, making sure to explode their shots in front of the infected to stun their enemy and not kill, after all the infected dragons were peaceful, just violent in their infected state. They beat off the attacks until the Grimora dragons got too tired to continue.

After that particularly eventful fight they continued towards the nest. As they reached the island Hiccup brought out his compass to check their route as well as checking the general condition of the nest. Toothless and Shadewrath just wandered off while having a conversation, heading to the fresh water pools.

After checking the islands general structure Hiccup went over to the fresh water pools to find the dragons so they could go off to do their mapwork. He came over to see Shadewrath and Toothless playing in the water. Initially happy to see their games he became worried at what he saw over their heads.

"Toothless and Shadewrath get out of the water."

Toothless and Shadewrath that said 'who are you to disturb our fun' but Hiccup gestured behind them. Turning, they saw the Grimora dragons again, drinking the water from the pool. The dragon's eyes widened, and they scrambled out of the water to regain flight before the infected dragons noticed them again.

As they cruised north east away from the dragons the night furies began to act oddly, they were seen with their pupils dilating before shaking themselves to get rid of the effect. After a while it became harder and harder to recover before both dragons were overcome. Wondering what was going on Hiccup looked at the dragons faces before recoiling quickly.

Both dragons now had the addled look of the parasite as well as purple liquid around their lips. Hiccup panicked and performed the wrong tail manoeuvre sending him and Toothless spiralling towards the sea. Still in the act of fending off Toothless Hiccup didn't notice as they got closer to the water or as the air went by quicker.

Eventually realising the dive at a low altitude, he set the tail again. However, it was too low and Toothless, in his infected state, could only slow himself down slightly before hitting the water with a reasonable crash. After hitting the water Hiccup was thrown clear. While in the water he desperately looked around to see what had happened to his friend. Toothless emerged from the water and Hiccup was initially scared, before noticing Toothless was giving him a friendly look and not the parasite one.

There was a moment of celebration until Shadewrath pelted the water with plasma blasts. Toothless came up again and wondered why Shadewrath was attacking them before realising he had the Grimora parasite look on him. Hiccup urged Toothless to stay calm while he came up with a plan. Deciding to use the dragon powers that the god of night had told him about Hiccup grew wings before rising to meet Shadewrath. As he neared Shadewrath while avoiding the endless plasma blasts he quickly latched onto a wing. Shadewrath was immediately overcome with loss of control and he plummeted downwards.

Before Shadewrath hit the water Hiccup extended his own wings to get off the out of control fury. After a moment underwater Hiccup and Toothless were happy to see Shadewrath emerge from the water with his normal face. He was a bit upset to have regained consciousness while in the water, but Hiccup thought he would understand after an explanation from himself.

Both dragons were swimming around in slight bewilderment from what had happened. Hiccup glided down onto Toothless' s back and set his tail for take-off. With a small dive and then powering back up Toothless and Hiccup were back in the air. Shadewrath followed close behind and they continued north east. After a couple more minutes flying and after the dragons had dried off they found an island. They decided to stop off for a break.

After concluding there was nothing else interesting they could find within the time they had left they headed back to Berk.

Meanwhile in Berk Stoick was going about his business until he heard the news of a dragon hunting fleet sailing nearby. It was not an Immediate danger to the island but could cause problems for the dragons of the village and their riders. As they were trying to ignore this unwelcome irritation (after all the slow dragons of the riders would be shot down) they were suddenly assaulted with anti-dragon projectiles, Stoick was immediately worried as these could hurt Human as well as beast and gave the order to load the catapults.

He tried to start sinking the ships with the catapults, but the catapults were far too inaccurate at hitting the sleek Dragon hunter ships. He decided to notify Hiccup, who's dragon had the most experience with dealing with these problems.

"Astrid!" he called

"Yes chief?" Astrid said as she ran over, having already been worried when the projectile rain happened, Stoick clamoured to her a message.

"tell Hiccup to hurry up, we need reinforcements!"

"will do, Chief" She said as she ran over to Stormfly to fly over to where Hiccup had gone to.

Toothless, Hiccup and Shadewrath were returning to Berk after their scouting exercise. All of them were bored after the long expanse of sea and Hiccup was amusing himself with flexing his wings. Suddenly Astrid arrived on Stormfly, Hiccup could see with his dragon sight that she was in distress. He urged Toothless and Shadewrath to fly over to see what had happened.

Astrid called to Hiccup once she was sure he was in hearing range

"Hiccup! Dragon hunters are attacking the village, Stoick says they need backup."

Hiccup was genuinely worried at the news. Dragon hunters had never been heard of attacking villages and he could only assume it was because of the villages decision to befriend dragons.

He urged the night furies onwards to where the village was. Astrid was both shocked and relieved when both night furies quickly passed her, racing to Berk. When the night furies arrived a confusing but irritating scene played out in front of them. there were about 6 boats with all their dragon hunting weapons facing Berk. And firing. He could see in the distance that Berk was absolutely covered in the projectiles and some houses had collapsed or been damaged because of it.

Annoyed by this he gave both the dragons their instructions.

"these ships are assaulting berk, if they continue their barrage there will be no Berk left. The plan is: Toothless and I go in first and then you, Shadewrath, follow and give a second shot. Ready? Let's go"

The dragon hunters on the ships suddenly heard a night fury whistle. The leader gave a clear warning that resounded through the ships: "night fury! Get down!"

As the sound got closer they noted with confusion that there seemed to be an echo in the whistle. Suddenly there was a sharp explosion, followed shortly by another. The hunters were confused by the two shots in quick succession and looked up. There they saw two night furies, this worried them greatly because this was one of the most powerful dragons in existence and they were only expecting one.

As the two night furies made a steep turn to begin the next dive the Leader encouraged his warriors to fight.

"Hunters! Dragon stations! Shoot them down!"

He said the last part with scorn for these powerful beasts, but he was soon silenced when he heard the night whistle again. This time he heard the sound head on.

"Odin help us" he whispered before his boat shuddered with the first blast and snapped into two on the second.

Without their leader the remaining hunters pulled down sails and prepared to flee

Hiccup called for the two night furies attention.

"Toothless, Shadewrath! Aim for their sails with a fire stream, immobilise them!

They did as he asked, and the fleeing Vikings were surprised when the two night furies flew in level. They were about to fire when they were blinded by a bright blue stream of fire which the night furies aimed at their mast. Initially confused that they were not being hit in the hull they then noticed with horror that their mainsail was burning away.

Shocked by the revelation that they were stuck in the water the men on the sails rushed to get the spare weapons out on deck.

Hiccup prepared for the final attack

"Toothless, get ready to take down their weapons. Shadewrath give them distractions, especially booms!"

Shadewrath was confused

"what kind of booms?"

Hiccup smiled

"sonic"

Shadewrath smiled with Hiccup

"my specialty"

Shadewrath then started climbing high into the sky for his performance while Hiccup and Toothless circled round the perimeter preparing for their next attack run. Shadewrath did a half loop in the air and started hurtling back towards the ships.

One of the bola gunners on the frightened ships was trying to get a good target. The night fury that had started climbing was too hard to hit, attacking from the sun, and so he resorted to trying to hit the circling night fury and his rider. To his irritation they avoided every attack he made, and he was about to try again when he noticed that the night fury above him had started a dive. As he squinted at the diving night fury there was no sound to be heard. This confused him until Shadewrath broke the sound barrier and brought chaos to the fleet.

Seeing their chance Toothless and Hiccup took the initiative and came in with low flight. When they reached the deck Toothless started picking up the hunter's weapons and chucked them into the sea. Shadewrath circled around and copied Toothless, clearing the hunter's ships of weapons. Eventually the ships were completely unarmed while the crew were still recovering.

Hiccup saw that his work was done and headed back to the island. Astrid arrived a few minutes later and after being astounded at Hiccup's handiwork, headed back as well.

Stoick stayed unsurely in his house. The barrage had stopped but he still had problems accepting that it was safe to go out, the sonic boom (although he didn't know it was this) had given him greater meaning to stay inside, lest it was a secret weapon of the hunters.

He heard footsteps outside the door and braced himself on the doorframe with axe. The unknown person opened the door and Stoick glanced to see who it was, only to relax as it was Hiccup.

Hiccup gave a small smile to Stoick as he prepared to tell Stoick the battle report.

"so, there were 6 ships, we sank 2 of them, then immobilised and disarmed the remaining four. Those four are still floating there, ready for your capture."

Stoick was surprised at the report. He had expected the speed of the attack but not the precision. Destroying a ship with a dragon was easy, immobilising and unarming it was much more difficult. He gave thanks then prepared to bring the dragon hunters into Berk's harbour.

The dragon hunters were nervous wrecks on their ships. The last small boat that hadn't been shaken to pieces had been taken to report the failure to Viggo and Drago. Now they were hopelessly exposed to any dragon attack the village gave them. They still had the ammunition, but they were too heavy to throw at the dragons at altitude.

They were surprised to hear another ship slicing through the water. They stood up clumsily to try to see if the sound was true and were happy to see that it was a convoy of ships. They assumed that Drago had given them reinforcements but then they were shocked to see Stoick at the helm.

As Stoick came aboard the first ship he inspected his prisoners. Pleased that the villains that had attacked his village were now dealt with he was about to turn around.

One of the more courageous hunters saw that he had a chance to hit chief Stoick. He quietly picked up one of the heavy bola's behind him and launched it at the chief. Stoick saw the projectile approaching with shock. Before he could react the weights of the bolas were about to hit his face, where they thankfully stopped, the bola weights hitting together about an inch away from his exposed face. After the bola's, robbed of their kinetic energy, had fallen to the ground he was able to see that Hiccup had stopped the bola mid-flight.

Hiccup was furious now and Stoick could see his eyes glowing and dilated in hate. A sudden burst of flame appeared on his arm and burnt the part of the bola he was holding onto. Hiccup turned to the shocked Viking and addressed him.

"Dragon hunter, you should think twice before trying to kill the chief of OUR village. You should be thankful that you aren't dead already. Stoick will be the judge of your attempt to kill him."

Stoick was slightly shocked at the respect Hiccup had commanded but agreed with the latter part of his statement. He called out to his crew to start bringing in these captured Vikings and their ships.

"tie them all together and tow them into the harbour. From there we can see what we want to do with them."

After doing as he commanded the crew set sail to Berk. Once there the crew of dragon hunters was sent to be punished while the ships were sent to be repaired. Once repaired they would join Berks Armada. Stoick was proud of his son.

And miles away another was cursing the existence of Stoicks son. Viggo was angry that the rider and his two dragons had taken down his entire fleet. And Viggo was sure to make them pay.


	3. 3: hiccup and the watchtower of Viggo

NFF- hiccup's encounter with the god of night.

A/N I am in Denmark and so updates are much slower.

Chapter 3:

Stoick looked thoughtful on one of the highest hills of Berk. His son Hiccup arrived to see him with slight confusion.

"what are you thinking about dad? I thought you would be with the other Vikings in the mead hall celebrating."

Stoick sighed as he turned around to give Hiccup the explanation.

"Hiccup, what concerns me are two things. One: your body changes and two: Viggo. I thought only your eyes and skin colour were different but now I see that the changes have penetrated further. Your deed with saving me from that bola was heroic but Makes me question just how much you have changed. Are you still Hiccup in mind and soul? That's all I'm asking for."

Hiccup thought on this before replying.

"Stoick. I am still me, my body has changed but my mind was almost unaffected, the only things of my mind that have changed are my feeding habits, the rest stayed the same. I know that the changes made me capable of other things, some destructive, but they are still entirely controlled by me and won't suddenly be triggered when they could hurt a member of our tribe."

Stoick was relieved to hear this confession for him.

"secondly, Viggo. You defeated his fleet, but I am sure he will make more ships and will now be looking for the night furies that fly with you. I am worried that with his determination to bring you down he will eventually capture you and do bad things to you."

Hiccup came back optimistically

"but I've got two night furies constantly watching my back and my new powers which Viggo probably has no ideas about, I will be fine!"

Stoick still looked glum.

"I just don't know what will happen and I know Viggo is a determined man. He may take a while, but he will not stop until he captures you."

Hiccup sat in silence as he thought on what Stoick had said. He knew about Viggo and his determination from when Stoick thought he would send dragon hunters to the nest (it was rejected when it would of cost too much money). He too was now afraid of this hunter for Stoick feared him also.

He came outside to meet the two dragons who were matching off their plasma blasts. Sad to ruin their game Hiccup gave them the grim warnings from his father. Both dragons were arrogantly unfazed. Toothless started with a proud explanation.

"doesn't Stoick know just how good night furies are? If you have two protecting you then you're untouchable!

Shadewrath joined in

"Hiccup, Toothless is right, we are the most feared dragons in existence for a reason! If we protect you then you have nothing to fear except fear itself.

Hiccup bitterly mounted Toothless for a patrol around berk. He thought that the dragon's hubris was sure to bring bad luck.

The next day Toothless, Hiccup and Shadewrath decided to scout over the route that lead to Viggo. This was supposed to see whether he already had an armada. On the way they passed mountains but did not think much of them. unfortunately missing the discrete fortifications hidden on them.

They gave up and headed back to Berk, as they passed by a mountain there was suddenly a barrage of bolts. Toothless and Shadewrath attempted to perform evasive manoeuvres to avoid the fire but Toothless was hit in the tail. His tail became paralysed and the dragon and his rider tumbled through the air. Before they were lost behind a cloud bank Hiccup shouted for Shadewrath to take vengeance. Shadewrath heeded the call and climbed.

Hiccup was in complete panic as he realised his worst fears had come true. He forcefully shook himself to clear the panic while thinking of what to do next. Seeing his dragon's tail being thrown around in its limp state gave him an idea. He edged off the saddle towards the tail, not needing to change the tail setting for now. He got to the tail before using his own body to brace the tail and keep it still. One leg hooked Toothless' s limp tail fin. It was time for the most daring manoeuvre of his young life.

Meanwhile Shadewrath was ready for some retribution, in typical night fury fashion he prepared for a dive attack. In his lucky state the defenders were looking to see where the shot dragon would land and must have expected him to have fled. Smiling at their stupid behaviour he half looped and brought the mountain fortress into his sights.

Hiccup was having the most stressful time of his life as he prepared for stage two of this crazy plan. They were still dropping fast even with the tail bringing them to a more controlled flight. Hiccup urged Toothless to use his wings to give them lift. Without the use of the tail to change direction Toothless' s wings slowly pulled them out of the dive.

Shadewrath launched a precise strike into the right wing of the fortress. Having taken out one third of their weapons he climbed again. The defenders noticed that the night fury hadn't left and started firing on him again. As he entered the clouds the defenders were suddenly unaware of where he was but continued their attack blindly.

Toothless was still pulling them out of the fall when Hiccup noticed they were crashing far off to sea. To have the best chance of surviving this he would have to land close to the shore. He urged toothless to turn back towards the islands using only his main wings. Toothless agreed while still in a panic and angled his wings until his recovery was angled towards land.

Shadewrath cruised above the clouds while dodging the occasional lucky shot of a hunter. He looked down with his thermal vision and saw that he was above the fortress again. One turn, one dive, one blast and another part of the fortress was destroyed. Two down one to go…

Hiccup and toothless had barely recovered from the dive and were still not ready to climb due to Toothless being tired.

As they got closer Hiccup realised with a start that Toothless was falling unconscious. Just before Toothless fell out of the air Hiccup instinctively Leapt off His tail. As he was travelling through the air he saw Toothless impact the water hard. After landing successfully on the beach Hiccup looked back to see the unconscious body of Toothless tumbling over the water before hitting the beach. Hiccup revelled in the sudden silence and wondered what was next.

Shadewrath demolished the last main tower of the fort with another carefully placed plasma blast. Although his work was done he still had to find Hiccup and toothless before Vikings sent to despatch the duo found them first.

As Shadewrath patrolled overhead Hiccup was suddenly alerted to five Vikings who had left the cover of the forest. Each was carrying a sword and one was also carrying a cross bow. Hiccup decided to go for the crossbow one first since he must be the leader. Hiccup gave a charge to the lead Viking who was surprised a lanky little boy would confront him in a suicidal charge. Before the Viking recovered Hiccup had given him an extremely hard punch to the chest. Winded, the lead Viking watched as Hiccup took on his compatriots.

Hiccup turned from his first encounter to enter another. By now the Vikings had recovered from their shock and they charged Hiccup while brandishing their swords. Hiccup greeted them with the same enthusiasm and dodged as the closest Viking swung his sword. Hiccup came up from his duck and used his bare fist to knock the sword from the Vikings hand. Hiccup caught the tumbling blade as it fell back to earth. He cleared the main group of Vikings and waited expectedly.

Shadewrath had scoured the sea for any sign of the missing duo. Giving up he headed back to see if they had crashed on land.

The Vikings again rushed hiccup. Lead by the unarmed Viking they descended upon him. Hiccup greeted the first Viking by using the pommel of his sword on his Vikings gut before elbowing his head, sending the first Viking unconscious. The second and third charged on unhindered by Hiccup's show of strength. He rushed towards them with his sword dragging in the dirt. When he reached the fearless Vikings, he jumped up with his legs towards the Vikings. The Vikings started to swing their swords before Hiccup's legs impacted their stomachs. With those Viking's incapacitated his jump from the Vikings pushed him over the arcs of their still swinging swords. He rushed the last standing Viking who stood firm against his advantage.

Shadewrath finally caught sight of the beach from his overhead surveillance. He immediately spotted Toothless lying on the white sand but was surprised to see Hiccup was up and fighting Vikings. Four were on the floor and Hiccup was already on the fifth with Vigour. He was eagerly watching as Hiccup pummelled the last one into submission. Shadewrath was about to celebrate when he saw something that made his blood run colder than usual. One of the Vikings on the floor had a crossbow. And he was aiming at Hiccup.

Hiccup had the last Viking in a head lock before he felt the presence of a weapon trained on him. He turned around to see a crossbow bolt aimed at his head. Not knowing what to do he was surprised when he began to hear the rising wail of a night fury dive.

Time seemed to slow down as the hunter pulled the trigger. The Arrow flexed as the string applied force before being propelled forward. The metal tip cut through the air guided by its fluttering fins. Then in the background the night fury blast impacted the ground between the arrow and the man who fired it. The arrow flew on in dreadful silence as the person who fired it was thrown back by the blast.

Hiccup had already accepted his death when suddenly the shockwave caught up with the moving arrow. Hiccup watched in fascination as the arrow shuddered in it's flight path. Overcome by the strong shock the small arrow was misdirected to the side. from here it swerved past Hiccup.

Hiccup gasped in shock as the arrow that had almost killed him (again) was redirected at the last second. Shadewrath made a landing on the Viking who had shot Hiccup to give him a bit more pain in revenge. Almost in a trance Hiccup woke Toothless up before succumbing to shock and passing out.

When Hiccup awoke the two night furies were awake and waiting for him. The five Vikings that had been fighting Hiccup were no where to be seen, probably scared off by the two night furies, Hiccup thought.

"where did the other Vikings go? I assume you chased them"

Toothless smiled in recollection

"yes, we chased them and gave them a big scare while doing so. I don't think they'll be back for a long time."

Hiccup nodded to show he understood and got onto Toothless. By then Toothless' s tail had recovered from the toxin and he was able to fly. As they cleared the island on their way back to berk Toothless had to give his gratitude.

"Hiccup, thank you for guiding me when I lost control of my tail. I was sure we would crash until you fixed our flight. I am only sorry that I fell unconscious before I could return the favour."

Hiccup replied with a grin trying to lighten the situation.

"don't worry Toothless. I got to the beach fine and I was glad to have your wings while we fell."

They both basked in the understanding that they both relied on each other and had helped each other before continuing their journey back to Berk.


	4. 4: trick shot! (transformation time)

**NFF- Hiccup's encounter with the god of night**

 **A/N:**

 **changed my profile so that you know that I am going to be splitting updates between my stories.**

 **Big thanks to Nightfuryfanfic. This story is his brainchild and his cover for my first story is nearing completion.**

 **Suggestions for Shadewrath' s personality?**

 **Part 4: trick shots!**

Hiccup looked to the distance with a set expression. He knew that the problems with the dragon hunters was only a start. Those dragon hunters would fight tooth and nail to capture or kill the two night furies who came with him.

Toothless realised (with a helpful message from the god of night) that Hiccup hadn't used the full extent of his powers.

"Hiccup you do realise there's more given to you than just dragon eyes and darker skin?"

Hiccup turned his face to displeasure, this was not really what he wanted to talk about.

"I do realise that there is more to this gift but it's too risky! What if the village freaks out and labels me an outcast for life?! I can resist slight displeasure but full on hate is another."

Toothless crooned to calm his rider

"don't worry Hiccup, although Vikings are Vikings and stubborn with that they can change. For need of a better cliché you know how they can change because you made them change. It's heavily repeated by now but you are the first to get Vikings to like dragons! Never forget that."

Hiccup smiled at the assurances of the dragon.

"I hope so, but it was hard the first time and I don't think it will be much easier this time. Also, I'm worried I won't understand it."

Shadewrath was underwhelmed.

"that is acknowledging defeat Hiccup. Your abilities are a part of you and your subconscious knows that."

Hiccup smarted at this.

"well how am I supposed to reach my subconscious?! It's subconscious for a reason!"

Shadewrath stayed unimpressed.

"pure instinct will drive you at first and then you will know."

After Shadewrath said this he started to charge a plasma blast while aiming at Hiccup. Hiccup was horrified at this sudden attack

"why are you doing that?! Nooooo-!"

As he was interrupted from his protests by the blast being fired. He raised his hands instinctively and prepared for the inevitable death. The plasma blast hit his arms, and to his surprise, broke up on contact and didn't harm him as the explosive sprayed into the air behind him. He was astonished and immediately checked his hands for injury.

What he found astounded him, not only were his arms unhurt, but they had also grown black scales to protect against the blast. Shadewrath decided to continue this lesson on the mystified boy.

"now that's out of the way we can move onto stage two of "yes you can access the subconscious you silly Hiccup."

As Hiccup was both surprised that there were stages of this and irritated that he had decided to choose such a long winded name. Shadewrath then took a hold of Toothless' s tail. Hiccup responded in panic.

"what are you doing to Toothless?!"

Toothless was also confused until Shadewrath encouraged him into action.

"come on Toothless! I got you, so you can flip him for stage 2."

Toothless was confused until logic offered him clarity. Stage 2. What must be the flying stage of hiccup's teaching. He half rolled into inverted flight. Hiccup fell screaming off Toothless' s back.

Toothless watched as Hiccup fell. He shouldn't do anything to halt the onset of Hiccup's instincts, but it was hard when he could see his friend plummet while screaming for help.

Hiccup was falling helplessly towards the ocean below. In his panicked state he resorted to just screaming for help on his horrifying plummet towards earth. To make it worse Toothless was just sitting above him watching him fall as Shadewrath stabilised Toothless at the tail.

Hiccup's gaze once again shifted towards the ground. In the middle of his near death experience strange things started to happen. Suddenly he knew his speed, he knew his altitude and then suddenly he felt two large appendages launch from his back into the air around as well as one long one lengthening from his tailbone.

As Hiccup was about to dismiss these appendages as merely near death insanity playing it's role he felt these appendages shift to start catching air. Hiccup was merely an onlooker for a moment as his wings and tails acted independently to keep him flying. After having recovered from his shock he looked up and saw Shadewrath. Angrily he gained altitude to meet him.

Toothless looked on with awe at the stunning metamorphosis as Hiccup gained flight in physical terms. He was however worried when Hiccup looked up at them and started to fly rapidly towards them, fury evident as glowing markings on his skin.

Hiccup came behind Shadewrath and prepared to give him a loud shout of anger. As he had inhaled in preparation he noticed something peculiar in how he took his breath, it didn't seem like he was using his lungs.

Toothless continued watching as Hiccup came up behind Shadewrath and shockingly started to produce a plasma blast. Toothless started to warn Shadewrath

"Shadewrath? Hiccup's preparing a plasma bla- "

He was cut off by Shadewrath who replied in a calm tone

"stage 3"

Toothless was astonished by the risk that his night fury friend was taking and was nervously anticipating the shot. Just as Hiccup shot, Shadewrath pitched up and allowed the shot to pass below him. Hiccup was overcome with worry after he saw what had come out instead of his shout of anger.

"are you okay Shadewrath? That shot passed awfully close to you."

Shadewrath just gave a smile back

"Don't worry Hiccup it was all part of the plan and I was ready to dodge that strike. Now you know exactly that you can tap into your dragon knowledge."

As hiccup noticed both the truth of Shadewrath' s statement and how he had let himself fall into the dragon's cunning trap he sighed. Toothless gave a small chuckle, Hiccup was confused at what was hilarious about the affair.

"what's so funny Toothless?"

Toothless replied with mirth

"Night furies supposedly never miss. That however looked an awful lot like a miss to me."

Hiccup sighed again as he realised his disappointing shot.

Meanwhile the shot by Hiccup careened towards the ocean. Happening upon a fishing vessel the supercharged shot hit the ship. The ship was blown apart and the mast was sent skyward. It tumbled end over end towards the flying trio.

Toothless noticed the mast flying towards them but was unable to get across a warning before the mast hit Shadewrath in the gut. In a quick turn of events Shadewrath let go of Toothless' s tail in pain forcing Hiccup to rapidly remount Toothless before he fell. Recovering from his pain Shadewrath went to pick up and inspect the projectile.

"how did this get up so far?" Shadewrath asked with pain still apparent.

Toothless noted something interesting on one end of the mast and notified Shadewrath with mirth entering his voice.

"It both seems to be a warm dragon blast that propelled it up here and the result of a plasma blast."

Shadewrath looked crestfallen as he realised the gist of Toothless' s explanation

"you don't mean that – "

Toothless gave a cunning smile as he expanded.

"yes, I do. Hiccup lived up to the maxim and landed one Helheim of a trick shot. What a lucky shot!"

Shadewrath was unable to comprehend the turn of luck on Hiccup's shot while Hiccup was astonished at the turn of events.

Toothless was curious of how it had happened.

"try it again Hiccup."

Hiccup lined up the shot like he had before but just before he shot he realised his vision went past Shadewrath to pick up another target. He released his shot as before and watched as it passed by Shadewrath with another one of his evasive manoeuvres. The trio waited for the result before seeing a slightly burned tree end heading in their general direction.

Shadewrath was astonished.

"firstly, Hiccup That is one Helheim of a shot. Secondly, I think this one will miss me."

Hiccup was a bit disappointed that he was going to miss this trick shot, but his dragon side evidently refused the idea. Hiccup was charging a shot before he knew it and discharged it into the log.

Shadewrath watched the log as it sailed towards him on a trajectory he knew would miss. Just as it was about to pass he saw Hiccup charging another shot. He was about to manoeuvre again but it was too fast, and Hiccup wasn't aiming directly at him. Hiccup released the shot into the log.

Before Shadewrath could fully comprehend the significance of Hiccup's shot hitting the log. the log was thrown sideways into him. He cried out and Toothless was watching with morbid curiosity.

"well he sure served you right for saying that comment."

Shadewrath, the mighty night fury, was a gibbering wreck at the show of the two most creative trick shots he had ever seen. Hiccup was astonished and excited at the honed edge of his abilities.

Toothless was sure that this had gone too far and made sure Hiccup was calmer.

"Hiccup I think that's enough for today, Shadewrath is in a pretty bad shape. Let's get back to the base before anything else."

Hiccup returned to a calm attitude and distracted himself with concentrating on flying. Shadewrath muttered curses at his own arrogance. Hiccup reached into the saddle bag of Toothless to give Shadewrath a fish to distract him from the pain. Shadewrath was grateful for the gesture.

The dragons and the gifted human came into sight of the village. They were thankful and glided in to rest at the stables. Hiccup again cared for Shadewrath before heading off into the village to figure out how to release his nervous energy. He wandered over to the dragon training academy to spend time with the others of his age. Hopefully they would get rid of this hyperactivity he was experiencing.

He arrived at the Ring and entered to find the others there. He walked in while preparing to deal with the fact that he would have a lot of questions to answer.

"where were you? You were gone for so long!"

"why are your eyes weird?"

"find any new dragon species."

Hiccup calmly responded to their questions in turn

"I was doing some more dragon hunting like I always do, it took longer than expected. I'll tell you why my eyes are weird later. Also, I found no new dragon species but another night fury.

They had been about to ask about the implied extra information about his eyes, but they dropped it when they heard about the new night fury. Fishlegs was happy while the rest were astonished. Astrid gave her own words for her astonishment.

"damn. I thought he was the only one out there. well done!"

Snotlout remembered the earlier avoidance about his eyes (somehow, I didn't know he had it in him!).

"so, what's with your eyes. I'm sure they are different from earlier."

Hiccup gave his honest explanation for fear it may come up later.

"I had an encounter with god."

The teens were transfixed with violent disbelief.

"surely you're joking!"

"what god could you possibly have met?"

Hiccup was glad that this initial shock had been dealt with, he continued while ignoring further comments.

"I was attacked by the night fury that I found. The night fury killed me. Nearly forever but the god of night decided to revive me by replacing the damaged part of my body with part of his own essence."

The teen's minds were blown, and it took more than a full minute before one of them could recover. Snotlout was first to interject his rejection of Hiccup's words.

"there is NO way that a god gave you part of 'his essence'! Firstly, _weird!_ Secondly, why would any god want to help you?"

Hiccup responded to Snotlout' s predictable but annoying rebuttal

"I have proof and the god shared his essence with me because I ride a night fury. The night fury is obviously quite important to the god of night."

Snotlout paced. Hiccup asked what he was waiting for, Snotlout explained

"for your 'proof'! you said you had some and I won't believe you until I see it."

Hiccup was irritated by Snotlout' s continuous insults. He prepared a night fury blast and decided to prank Snotlout with it. He picked a point of interest close to Snotlouts head and distracted him.

"you see that large white mark on the wall behind you."

Snotlout turned and looked at the white mark while Hiccup exposed his preparing blast to shoot. The teens were too distracted to warn Snotlout. Snotlout kept looking at the wall until he got bored.

"what about it there's nothing to see- "

He was interrupted by a shot that passed right by his head. The heat singed his hair and it shocked everyone when it hit the wall with an earth-shaking explosion. Hiccup looked pleased

"Is that evidence enough for you? Anyway, I've got to go back to the new night fury, his name is Shadewrath and he's getting used to the island."

Before he left Fishlegs caught his attention.

"can you come here tomorrow morning? so we can see more of what you can do."

Hiccup blushed at the awed comments of Fishlegs before he left the ring to go back to Shadewrath and Toothless.


	5. 5:

NFF-hiccup's encounter with the god of night part 5

In the morning Hiccup progressed over to the dragon ring to make good on his agreement with Fishlegs. He arrived to find the teens in the ring waiting for his arrival. Fishlegs was heavily excited.

"what can you show us? I'm so excited by your new abilities."

It was frankly puzzling to Hiccup when Fishlegs treated him like a new species of dragon. However, it was true that he was half god of night (and half night fury because of that) and so he was new for berk. Hiccup was careful not to get Fishlegs too excited as he stated a few more facts.

"You guys wanted to learn more about me. Well I'll tell you so listen closely. My eyes can magnify my vision and see heat. I have wings and a tail folded onto my back. I have fire proof scales. That's basically all I know for now and it freaks me out that I have these … these abilities."

Hiccup wallowed in shame at not knowing how far these changes went. Fishlegs was not appreciative of this and did frantic notes. Hiccup felt like an attraction in front of the teens, especially Fishlegs who was carefully studying him.

Fishlegs finished his notes and decided to probe further.

"so, with your eyes could you read a message on the far side of the ring?"

Hiccup sighed but was getting quite irritated.

"yes, I can but remember I. AM. NOT. AN. ATTRACTION."

Unfortunately, Fishlegs did not hear the last part in his excited run to the back of the arena. The other teens turned their attention to Hiccup to realise in horror that his face was shifting. Hiccup's normal face was gone for a moment to make way for the face of an enraged night fury. All the teens that were watching were frozen by instinctual fear of Hiccup while Fishlegs was tragically unaware of the situation.

Fishlegs was writing his message in purposefully small runes and then after he finished that he turned around back to Hiccup.

"So, Hiccup can you read thi- "

Although he was distracted by the look of anger in Hiccup's fury face Hiccup took back control long enough to complete the test.

"you wrote: "can you read this". first off, not very original. Second, don't make me have to do anything else. I am not an attraction."

Loki really had it in for Fishlegs and he was too distracted by the knowledge that Hiccup's first assurance was true to remember the second part.

"well what about heat vision. now how do I set up something for Hiccup to look for."

Hiccup was venting blue light from markings on his body and his mouth was forming smoke. The last straw was Fishlegs commenting on his newest test with wonder.

"well if I put a fire behind this metal panel then he should be able to see the heat with his weird abilities."

'weird'. It was a poor choice of words to describe Hiccup and Hiccup was already preparing multiple plasma blasts.

The first plasma blast hit the metal panel on the far side of Fishlegs. Fishlegs panicked and ran the other way only for his way to get blocked by three more plasma blasts. Hiccup unloaded plasma blast after plasma blast with the honing aim of his glowing blue eyes. It wasn't after Fishlegs looked scared to death that Hiccup let up on his barrage.

The teens were shocked but glad that Hiccup hadn't tried to hurt Fishlegs. Hiccup's glow subsided, and he walked over to Fishlegs.

"Sorry Fishlegs but I gave you two warnings and you didn't listen. I'm fine now but don't ever make me into an attraction again. I can't stand it"

Everyone in the ring could hear the lowering whistle as Hiccup literally cooled down. He patted Fishlegs on the back and tried to get him walking out the arena. Fishlegs stood scared stiff.

"why did you get so angry? You never get that angry usually, not with anyone."

Hiccup sighed in shame.

"You picked a topic that I am still quite sensitive on. I am wary of my changes and how they could get me exiled from the Village."

Astrid was confused.

"but you helped save everyone, why would they not accept you, even with this temper?"

Hiccup was ashamed that Astrid noticed his short temper. He nervously gave back his honest answer.

"because the entire time leading up to our victory over the red death I was aware of how resistant Viking's were to change. I still don't think that is any different now and they would not accept the original dragon rider as half night fury. Worse case scenario is they suspect everyone that has touched a dragon to be infected as well."

Astrid was quietened by this heavily logical answer. She then gave some more encouragement about Viking behaviour.

"but they all value a strong fighter. Surely you can see that your strengths may be considered an advantage."

Hiccup thought on this. Being a strong fighter had never got him out of any situations before because, well, he was not a strong fighter. Astrid's words had brought attention to his new condition and the advantages that came with it.

"I guess I could show the village I had prowess in fighting. Being stronger than other Vikings would certainly get their attention. Hopefully I can reveal that fight first before letting them know I am a night fury."

Snotlout heard 'stronger than other Vikings' and reacted against Hiccup for his own ego. Fishlegs noticed Snotlout getting a sneer but was too late as Snotlout started his arrogant comeback

"well you don't have anything on me. I am a Jorgenson and Jorgensons are the best!"

Everyone just looked at Snotlout with serious concern about how his ego would put him into trouble. It was only a sign of self control that Hiccup didn't react in anger again. Hiccup responded in a sarcastic voice.

"are you sure it is a good enough idea to challenge me?"

Snotlout really hadn't adjusted to the fact that Hiccup had scared Fishlegs to death with _plasma blasts_.

"oh, why yes! I'm stronger than you any day. Hiccup the useless."

Hiccup was all ready to give Snotlout hell, but he was wary of their spectators.

"I would start walking away now. This fight could be quite intense, 'Viking honour' and all that."

The other teens were receptive to his comments and started running out the arena. After Hiccup was sure that they were out of harm's way he turned back to Snotlout.

"well then, let's fight."

The first moments were simply intimidation. Snotlout bravely brandished his hammer while Hiccup trumped his display with a haze of blue light radiating off his markings. Snotlout decide to press the attack and charged full speed at Hiccup while getting his hammer ready to strike. Hiccup decided to mess around with Snotlout and shot his hammer out of his grasp. Snotlout struggled to put out the flames on his tunic while Hiccup laughed. Hiccup also gave another warning to Snotlout.

"we can stop the fight here. We don't need to go to the point of injury. Snotlout, just please accept that I am stronger than before."

Snotlout had had his family name insulted (from his point of view) and came in swinging again.

Hiccup sighed.

A few minutes later Snotlout finally got the message. He was courageous to have gone through multiple warnings from Hiccup but foolhardy to think he could win.

Hiccup left the dazed Snotlout in the ring to go chase down the rest of the spectators. He used his wings for added speed and soon could glide down to land behind Astrid. Astrid questioned what had happened while they were walking back. Hiccup explained.

"Snotlout got what he deserved, and I sincerely hope I don't have to fight him again."

Astrid nodded in agreement.

"I do respect fighting but sometimes it is basically pointless. Shame you couldn't have done it in the middle of the Village so we could've got the introduction of your strength out of the way."

Hiccup felt that her just saying strength was a bit ignorant of his full abilities.

"you do know I can do far more than use my upgraded muscles in battles."

Astrid agreed once again.

"I do know that, but you've got to remember this is all the other Vikings care about. It is something I hate as well. I am distinguished with my axe, honing my skills since I was a child, but all people want to see is how much strength I have. My strength is in grace and no one noticed that. I was only lucky that when dragons came, thanks to you, grace was more widely accepted as a fighting style."

Hiccup was surprised to hear this sincere explanation from Astrid. He wanted to give her his own version of what happened to himself.

"And with me my fighting style is almost completely draconic. I still use Human fighting styles, but I recognise that I am far more comfortable with dragon warfare tactics."

Astrid smirked at Hiccup's explanation that he was different from the other Vikings. She realised that he was basically the same as her. It was odd that she was connected by fighting style to what had been the Viking runt, but she decided to accept it.

"you know we could make a good team with our unconventional tactics."

Hiccup gave a warm smile and Astrid was a little confused at his sudden emotions.

"why are you smiling."

Hiccup replied

"because I was thinking of the fighting force we would be. One half god, one amazing shield maiden, one Nadder and two night furies."

Astrid was interested at the possibilities. It was a hopeful prospect, but they would have to worry about revealing Hiccup's changes to the rest of the village first.

Hiccup decided to leave the conversation soon after and left with a quick goodbye to Astrid. He wanted to get to the two night furies, so they could help him plan out his reveal.

He arrived where the two night furies and introduced his question to them.

"so somehow I've got to show the village I am a hybrid before I am forced to, and I have to do it so that nobody exiles me. Astrid suggested showing my strength beforehand, so I gain respect."

Both night furies mulled over Hiccup's statement. Toothless knew about how much the Village hated strange things. It was likely that they blamed Loki for Hiccup's transformation and exiled Hiccup from the island.

Hiccup continued his expression of worries.

"and after having to fight Snotlout and scare Fishlegs I can believe that no one will trust me to stay peaceful."

Toothless and Shadewrath were puzzled, Shadewrath stated his concern:

" **why did you have to fight your fellow humans?"**

Hiccup explained the matter to them:

"Fishlegs got too curious about me so I had to get him to stop. I warned him, but he still observed me like a new species of dragon. Snotlout got annoyed when I said I was the strongest Viking in berk, naturally he had to make me fight him."

This interrupted Toothless' s mulling when he got an idea.

" **what about giving Snotlout a duel in the middle of the village, then everyone else can see your strength like you talked about."**

Hiccup immediately turned down this idea.

"No, Snotlout doesn't want to fight me anymore."

Toothless did a bit more thinking before coming up with a solution.

" **doesn't Snotlout have a father?"**

Hiccup was still depressed about the whole solution and so only gave a weak reply

"yes, he does, why?"

Toothless grinned widely.

" **then you could challenge his father to a duel!"**

Toothless' s smile faltered.

" **why do you need to have a duel. I know that you have to get yourself noticed but does it have to be Violent."**

Hiccup was respectful of the perspective of Toothless.

"I guess in all my thinking I forgot that there's one person I know who could help me explain my change without the village exiling me: Stoick"

Toothless was happy that he had brought Hiccup from his violent path but the existence of it confused him.

"why did you decide on such a violent action in the first place? You're normally much calmer than this."

Hiccup was sure of that himself. 'Why am I so Violent today."

"I think that being different and Fishlegs making me into an attraction made me very protective of myself."

Toothless absorbed his confession and gave him a small loving embrace to celebrate him understanding his emotions. After Toothless had released Hiccup from the hug Hiccup walked towards his house.

He entered the house and was confronted immediately by the chief. He was a bit nervous that he had met the chief so easily, normally Stoick would be out doing his duties. He conveyed his nervous confusion.

"Oh, hi dad! Why aren't you in the village, you know, on Chiefly duties."

Stoick was a bit mystified why Hiccup was so nervous but explained.

"Well there isn't much to do currently, the village is running fine and there are no attacks to worry about."

Hiccup absorbed this information like Toothless had done for him. Eventually though he had to speak out with his concern.

"Dad, I have something I need for you to do."

Stoick was confused further.

"but why do you need me to do something. Can't you do it yourself? Especially considering your half night fury."

Hiccup was a bit worried that someone had heard Stoick, but no one was close to the Chiefs hut. Sighing in relief, Hiccup gave his reasoning.

"I need you to tell the other Vikings in the Village about my changes."

Stoick was struck with the realisation he had not told the rest of the village about Hiccup's transformation. He decided to go outside and give the important speech to the village.

Hiccup could only hope that things went smoothly.


	6. 6: another encounter w the god of night

**Hiccup's encounter with the god of night.**

 **A/N**

 **Updates are coming on nicely.**

 **Might do a one-shot httyd/thunderbirds. There doesn't seem to be one yet and I thought a lot about it after watching the new series of thunderbirds are go.**

 **Switching to 1500 words per update like my first story "hiccup gone half fury" I am running low on ideas of how to make this story better and this should give me more time to think.**

 **Part 6**

Stoick stepped out into the open and sounded a meeting. The villagers came running and Stoick watched bitterly as all the villagers came to hear his sad news. Once all the villagers had ran/flown in, Stoick began his announcement.

"today I bring you together to discuss an important issue that has been brought to my attention. I can show you the issue here, but I require you to remain calm."

All the villagers were talking amongst themselves excitedly. What kind of issue was it that was both important and could be shown soon. The villagers hadn't the faintest idea and watched as Stoick whispered something into Hiccup's ear.

"you know what to do boy. Either Valhalla or Helheim awaits your unveiling."

Instead of Hiccup running off clumsily to get something from else where the villagers were surprised when he just turned towards them. They were still confused until they saw the wings that unfolded majestically from behind his back. the Villagers were lost to superstitious panic but Stoick quietened them down.

"SILENCE!"

The shockwave passed through the crowd as strong as a sonic boom. They awaited his further words.

"I know that this is not what you were expecting today but here we see a boy. This boy has attributes of a dragon. There is no Loki pulled on you while watching and the gods haven't cursed us. This gift was given from the gods to reward Hiccup and not to cause pain to his fellow Vikings."

The Villagers were still confused until an unexpected person showed up. The Vikings shook with fear and pointed to the area beside Hiccup with fear.

"Loki is beside the boy! It was a trick after all!"

The god of night (for the Viking's "Loki" was him) both facepalmed and gave a slight laugh. He then introduced himself to the Viking's

"although I seem to have tricked you into thinking I'm Loki I would prefer you refer to me as the god of night. I have come here to assure you that, yes, this is a blessing and not a curse."

The Vikings trembled in the presence of the god, but the god of night was not interested in absorbing this worship. He gave a quick bow to Hiccup and then disappeared into thin air.

The Vikings were now speechless and turned back towards Hiccup. Since the god had thought it fit to do so the villagers too bowed to Hiccup. Stoick was surprised that a god had intervened but was glad that Hiccup was now accepted.

Hiccup left the area. He was very glad that the god had made the situation bearable. He rounded the bend around his house and discretely tried to fly away. He was unsure what had caused his sudden irritability and wanted to calm down with a cruise around the archipelago. As Hiccup circled the island, watching the peaceful village far above the range of most dragons, he finally started to get inner peace. In the middle of his tranquil state he was suddenly aware of Toothless and Shadewrath descending (Toothless' s tail setting was fixed in place.). Toothless made conversation first.

" **so, have you calmed down finally?"**

Hiccup was glad he could answer that question calmly.

"yes, I feel much better than before. The long flights certainly help the mind to relax."

Toothless was heartened by the news and glided down alongside Hiccup back to the island. Once there a panicked Astrid met them. Astrid had done her patrol and came back with news that the dragon hunters had replenished their ships. she noted that they now had some interesting developments including 6 areas where extra ballistae were mounted. Hiccup and the night furies decided to scout the dragon hunter isles for themselves to learn more.

Hiccup and the night furies took off again. Hiccup noted with interest that Toothless was able to fly, albeit not very well, without Hiccup riding Him. Hiccup soon sought to correct that situation.

Hiccup flew swiftly towards Toothless to mount him and turn off the inflexible tail setting. The inflexible setting was good for if Toothless wanted to fly on his own but wouldn't give him much agility. Hiccup made sure to check the tail was functioning fine before scolding the night fury.

"Toothless! You should know that you shouldn't fly with a tail like that. Who even did that for you!?"

Toothless smiled with his reply.

" **I pestered Gobber until he got it to stay in one place, so I could fly.** "

Hiccup was confused

"he managed to do that in the brief period that I was doing my introduction?"

Toothless smiled wider (he was talented at this)

" **I can be quite annoying."**

Hiccup laughed in understanding.

"I know you can be, bud. Now let's go"

With the unparalleled speed of the night fury driving them forward it did not take them long to reach the dragon hunters hideout. Hiccup saw the ships and was surprised. Like Astrid had said all the ships now had 6 extra ballistae as well as their normal weaponry. Astrid hadn't mentioned that the crew now had lenses to see dragons better. In the daylight and without altitude Hiccup could see the heavy weapons being trained on his flight.

Hiccup pulled Toothless into a turn to the side as the ballistae discharged their bola's. He warned Shadewrath too and was glad to see him dodge the shots. An astonishing number of projectiles whistled through the air beside them. Hiccup could only sound a retreat as the gunners on the ship kept reloading.

Once out of range of the ballistae Hiccup could finally think about how to bring down the new ships. He mapped out the area and decided where they could put defensive weaponry of their own.

Hiccup flew back to berk and gave plans to Gobber for some portable artillery they could put on the island. Gobber was respectful of the need to stop the dragon hunters but wasn't quite sure whether to trust Hiccup. Deciding that whether he trusted Hiccup wasn't important for creating the artilleries Gobber set to work.

Eventually the artillery cartridges were ready, and Hiccup set about filling them up, carefully, with siphoned plasma. Once he had filled up the casings he helped Gobber complete the heavy weaponry. Hiccup also made some special weaponry that helped specifically against the ships.

After loading up some transport ships Hiccup and the others were ready to lay siege to the dragon hunters.

Viggo looked on in pride at his new fleet. The fleet was better than ever with it's new ballistae and he was sure no rider would get close enough to damage it. The previous failed attempt to bring down the night furies hadn't been a success but Viggo payed no mind to it. The ships had been successful at keeping the rider away and that's all he needed. The ships were taking a while to complete, but he was sure when they were ready he would have all the firepower he needed.

Hiccup set up the last plasma launcher and trailed a rope across the open water to take out the rudders of the ships. He made sure that the rope was securely fastened at both ends before flying up to survey his handiwork. He was happy with the work and motioned for the Berkians to ready up on their separate guns.

The villagers who had agreed to go with Hiccup were not expecting to have to lay siege to the dragon hunter stronghold. They had assumed, in typical Viking manner, they were going to charge the stronghold. Hiccup made sure to give them encouragement of how the plan was supposed to work but the villagers weren't so accepting. Hiccup sighed and made his way back to his camp. The dragon riders were there as well as the Berkians who were resting.

Hiccup walked up to the telescope and examined closely what the dragon hunters were doing. Their boatyard had another ship that was nearing completion, and by the fact that the boatyards would normally build 5 ships at a time, meant their invasion fleet was almost complete. Hiccup silently swore as he watched the last ship come inexorably closer to being finished. He also wished that his fellow riders could have just blasted the place beforehand.

He wanted to continually blast the area with plasma blasts but that would give away their element of surprise and wouldn't damage the ships. The worst part of the situation was that Hiccup was unused to war. He wished he could make Viggo see the path to peace, but he knew Viggo wasn't that kind of person. With the last thought dying into the depths of his mind Hiccup watched Viggo launch his last dragon ship.

Once all the ships had been launched Viggo strode up to the helm and prepared to sail for berk. He was sure this force could catch Berk by surprise and get all the dragons captured. He thrust forward his weapon in the direction of Berk.

"forward, warriors. We shall take Berk from the dragon huggers that reside there. Those who trust dragons are devils and deserve their fate! HOIST THE ANCHORS!"

The anchors were raised, and the boats accelerated towards the far off Berk. The ships sliced through the water while Viggo inspected the last ship.

"a few leaks that can be easily be taken care of. The ballistae need a little less tension, easily adjusted. Well that concludes it. The fleet is ready for combat!"

Viggo then strode up to the prow to watch the water in front of his newest addition. It all was going well until he saw some ropes strung through the water. He was worried that the line might entangle some oars, so he stopped the fleet.

Once the fleet had lowered anchor, to a few grumbles of discontent from the sailors, Viggo wondered how to shift the rope out of the way. He was getting some men to cut it, but he was interrupted by a call from the lookout guard

"dragons right above us sir!"

Viggo was happily surprised until he thought about the angle. The dragons were too vertical for them to fire the ballistae. Undeterred he called for the crew to bring out their crossbows.

Although the crossbows didn't have enough range to do large physical damage they were enough to deliver the payload of dragon root. Hiccup saw the slow firing of crossbows towards them. He hazarded a retreat but some of the others weren't listening.

Fishlegs was far too loving of his Gronckle and thought she could easily deflect all the shots. He did not reckon on the soft underbelly of the Gronckle and Meatlug started falling towards the ground. Viggo was happy to see the dragons retreating. He called out to Hiccup.

"what are you doing up there fury rider? Is the rider afraid of a few old ballistae?"

Hiccup just gave a mocking reply.

"It's not a full retreat! Just wanted. to show you some surprises!"

He was laughing until the first surprise was unveiled. Metal screens had been erected to protect the dragons. The dragons could peek out and fire from behind the screen while ballistae bolts would just bounce off. Viggo tried to maintain a show of dominance.

"what are you planning to do while hiding like cowards?"

Hiccup gave him another mocking response

"did you think that was all we had?"

Viggo was growing tired of Hiccup's taunts but was shaken out of it when two blasts rocked both sides of the ship. Viggo looked over one side and saw a strange machine that poked out from between another metal shield. Viggo was slightly worried about entering Hiccup's trap but only showed courage.

"gunners! Give the dragon shields everything you've got. Archers keep watching the skies for more dragons. And Hiccup. Why would you put in so much work into a machine that only fires one shot!"

As he and his crew laughed Hiccup retorted

"you think they can only fire one shot?"

Viggo and his men were now frighteningly aware of the sound of a bolt being slid back and locked on both sides of them. They were fixed with another set of blasts and another pair of plasma launcher joined the barrage.

Viggo's crew panicked and started to ballistae and crossbow bolts at the launchers. The metal screens protecting the launcher did their job and none of the shots found their mark. The launchers themselves though quickly ran out of ammunition and would have to wait until they were reloaded.

Viggo took this pause of incoming bombardment to hazard some more taunts to Hiccup.

"your trap has failed. None of my ships are damaged and we can sail to Berk while ignoring this petty ruse."

Hiccup was having fun at the expense of the serious Viggo.

"what about the rope in the water?"

Viggo noticed but didn't give Hiccup the satisfaction of the small victory.

"our ships will get past the rope easily! Did you really think that my dragon ships are weak enough to be stopped by a rope?"

He ordered the anchors to be raised and awaited the shock from the fury rider when he simply cut through the rope in front of him. He was disappointed and worried when the rope got pushed up by the ram but didn't cut. Instead it just immobilised his ship. Hiccup picked up on his surprise quickly.

"seems like a rope _did_ stop your 'incredible' battleship. I'm not surprised, it does have metal threaded through the centre after all."

Viggo was astounded by the intricacies of this trap. He only had one choice left and that was to retreat. He ordered for the sails to be raised and the ships oars to row them back to the stronghold, there he could rely on the mountain fortresses to safeguard his ships. As he was doing this order Hiccup made an angry stand against Viggo's retreat.

"not so fast. You declared war on Berk, don't think you get away this easily."

The other riders were confused at how Hiccup was so enraged again. That was until his aura of fury (another gift from the god of night) infused through them as well. They vowed that Viggo would not make it back to his island with his fleet intact. Their anger flowed through them and appeared as a purple mist that enveloped them.

Viggo really was scared but he could only hope that the weaponry he surrounded himself with would do the job. He ordered firing into the purple haze and the ballistae turned towards the cloud. Before they could fire they saw streams of purple clouds emerge in different directions from the main cloud. They could only assume these were the dragons and they fired blindly.

Hiccup could see the ship below with his enhanced vision and prepared some of his infamous trick shots.

Viggo was still ordering his men to fire while shooting with a crossbow he had brought himself. He managed to hit one through the fog. unfortunately, his celebration was halted when both the dragon he had hit recovered and he heard the unmistakeable pitch scream of a night fury descending on his ships.

Hiccup urged toothless to focus on hitting the left hand side ballistae while telling Shadewrath to focus on the let hand oars. While they were both aiming at the other side of the boat Hiccup zoomed in to disable the entire right side of the ship.

Viggo watched as the swirl of purple gas descended on one of his ships. The left side oars and ballistae were destroyed conventionally but the right hand ballistae did something unusual. The ballistae were forced out of their mountings and fired as they travelled through the air. The bolts travelled straight through the mast and caused the heavy mast to fall over.

Hiccup and the night furies repeated this strategy with ruthless efficiency. Eventually they pulled off their attack to let the teens confront the dragon hunters themselves. Viggo predictably fled before the teens could get him and the dragon hunters were left to fend for themselves with no heavy weaponry or mobility.

The crew were very fortunate the fury effect was removed before the teens got into range.

Hiccup, Toothless and Shadewrath glided above. They were lucky to have no fatalities and two minor injuries throughout their force.

Toothless congratulated Hiccup on his newest trick shot style.

" **you made a ballista both break off it's mountings and then shoot its own mast?! How do you do that?"**

Hiccup chuckled and gave the night fury his honest answer with a tinge of smugness.

"just the special gift from the god of night, it comes in useful sometimes."

Toothless rolled his eyes at his arrogant rider.

" **I'll just practise and then I'll be twice as good as you are"**

Shadewrath joined in the conversation

" **As if you could Toothless. You know that Hiccup has the gift for trick shots."**

Toothless came back with mock competition

" **are you taking me on Shadewrath? I will beat you** _ **easily**_ **!"**

Hiccup interceded the argument.

"this can wait until we're back on berk"

The dragons silently agreed.

 **A/N for end of chapter.**

 **The use of the rope to stop the Dragon ships was inspired by Sea shepherds use of the propeller foulers during the war against the whalers.**

 **It was** _ **supposed**_ **to be 1500 words, but I think I overshot the mark slightly, I hope you readers don't mind.**


	7. 7: Meeting on a strange new land

**NFF- Hiccup's encounter with the god of night.**

 **As I have mentioned before I have had trouble figuring out where to take this story. Ideas would be welcomed but until then I must make my own storyline**

 **As per last Hiccup gone half fury update I will try to consciously add detail to my stories**

 **Poll will go up! Do you want the dragons to have human forms?**

 **Another power is mentioned in this chapter. I would love to hear your thoughts of it.**

 **English speaking Vikings (I don't know even Danish even though my mother is a Dane)**

 **Part 7**

Hiccup watched as the two night furies competitively tested their aim on berk. They could always hit the target but the ability to use the object they just hit to hit another was out of their understanding. Shadewrath silently swore as he watched yet another target goes flying into the dark water in a completely random direction.

" **I can't believe you can just calculate the trajectories of everything you hit. That's a lot of thought in a very short time!"**

Hiccup was getting quite bored of his constant irritation that he couldn't do a trick shot.

"do we really have to go over this again? The god gave me powers that allowed me to do those calculations and I'm sorry, but he didn't give you the same thing."

Both Toothless and Shadewrath chafed at this but continued firing over the dead grass at the granite targets. Hiccup got up and tried to help Toothless with his aiming since Toothless wanted to hit the target dead centre every time.

Astrid wandered through the village. The village had changed a lot with the announcement of Hiccup's change. Some houses had added a shade of black with a surrounding complement of gold to celebrate the strength of the man crossed with dragon that was next in line to the throne.

Mildew however had decided to show 'respect' (not, he still hated dragons) to Hiccup and carved his house to have three figureheads hewn from the wood: Toothless with a spear through the head, Shadewrath with an axe and Hiccup was shown as half dragon half boy and was punctured with many weapons.

Villagers frowned upon Mildews show of hatred but ignored him since it had been assumed a long time ago he was going mad with age.

Astrid kept walking towards the dragon stables to fetch Stormfly. Ever since the incident with the dragon hunters Hiccup had urged her to carry more to protect herself on flights. She had done so but mostly out of respect for the heir. She got her customised saddle with its equipment onto Stormfly and took off for her round of patrol.

While Astrid cruised through the blustery weather of high altitude she was able to see a previously unseen island. She was eager to discover the new island especially since it looked suitable to live on. She flew over to scout it out and was pleased to discover it was filled with both trees and animals which moved through the grasslands.

To the north of the island was a mountain with goats that wandered around peacefully and around the foot of that mountain was a forest with various types of trees filling out the upper reaches. The east and west sides were also high but on the south side the cliffs had a valley in between them that served as an entrance to the natural harbour in the middle of the island.

The island was perfect (by Viking standards) and there didn't even seem to be any settlements on the inside of the natural harbour.

Astrid put Stormfly on a landing run to the island. Both to let Stormfly rest for a while and to let Astrid explore the area on foot.

After a smooth landing Astrid headed towards the forest to see what hid under the branches. She entered the loud underbrush and scanned around for any life. She wandered through until she was near the bottom of the mountain and then turned back for the grassy plains of the high cliffs.

Astrid kept walking through the soggy undergrowth until she heard a tree falling. After a while she was thinking it to be a random occurrence before she heard footsteps, direction unknown due to the echoes of the forest.

She ran back towards the plains where safety from this confusing encounter lay. She was halfway back when she saw men carrying logs right in her path. She tried to flank them, but they had already noticed her and gotten into battle stances.

Astrid took up a battle stance as well. She didn't want to turn into a dragon since the trees would compound her movement. She slowly started brandishing her axe in preparation for the battle. The men stalked closer to her and she swung her axe faster in a show of strength.

"bring it on! I can handle all of you any day!"

She was sure she could easily beat these men with her enhanced strength. Then the first blow came, not from Astrid, not from the men in front of her but a carpenter that had snuck up behind her and knocked her unconscious.

Hiccup was a bit unsure of where Astrid had gone. Having one of the villager's best shield maiden missing was strange and unwelcome. He went to ask around for anyone who knew of Astrid's current location. Funnily the only person who seemed to know was bucket, he had been bringing in the catch of the day and saw Astrid change course towards a far off Island.

Hiccup was thankful for the information and went to Shadewrath and Toothless for what he assumed was a rescue mission. The trio got ready for flight and turned their course for the mysterious island.

They reached the outskirts and circled to look for anti-dragon defences but found none. They also spotted Stormfly waiting eagerly but looking longingly at the forest. Stormfly was glad to see them arrive.

" **Hello Furies! My rider doesn't seem to be coming back anytime soon. Do you know where she is?"**

Hiccup was confused that he could understand Stormfly but reasoned that he probably could understand all species, not just night furies. He told Stormfly the distressing news.

"no, we don't know where she is. I can't see any anti dragon defences, so it wasn't the hunters. I can only assume it was other inhabitants, but I can't see any settlements."

Stormfly was also surprised that Hiccup understood her but nodded in sad understanding. Hiccup lead the search into the forest and they looked for a while before coming across light footprints in the moist soil.

They followed the footprints towards the sea and came across a set of caves. Here they had an indecision as Stormfly and Shadewrath wanted to charge in with all their firepower, but Hiccup wanted peace and Toothless stood by Hiccup in his decision. The dragons were fiercely divided on their opinions and Hiccup took this chance to sneak away and do the peace operation himself.

Hiccup found a walkway and entered inside. He snuck through the entrance and slowly moved through the strange rock hewn settlement. None of them were currently in their homes but rather he could see some walking over to another part of the cavern and he assumed there was an assembly.

He got close and found a series of stairs surrounding a platform. Above the platform was a ragged flag which he had never seen before: a red pattern in the arrangement of spokes on a wheel surrounded by blue. On the platform itself was a gathering of strange people in torn blue uniforms surrounding a confused Astrid. She seemed to be unsure of something as she asked a question.

"you're _British?_ What kind of clan name is that? I haven't heard of any group calling themselves the British."

One of the men who had a special hat answered her question.

"I told you before! We aren't from around here, our ship got blown horribly off course and we don't even know where we are."

Astrid stayed resistant even as the man seemed sincere about his own confusion. Hiccup was glad that the man did not seem to be armed or attacking Astrid. Hiccup decided the most direct action was the most likely to succeed.

He sneaked into the middle of the area from above and dropped down. The room quietened down as they realised the intruder had entered without any of them noticing. They were ready to attack but Hiccup was unarmed. They uneasily waited. The special hat man questioned the intruder after he had recovered from the initial surprise.

"what are you doing here unarmed?"

Hiccup tried to remain calm surrounded by people he didn't know, his plan depended on shock, so he could talk to the leader. He responded.

"this here is Astrid, my friend. I want to know what you're doing with her."

The man thought on the question for a moment before giving him the answer.

"we're just wondering what she's doing. She came up right behind some of my axe men and got into a fighting stance. Do you know why she did that?"

Hiccup was failing in trying to stay calm. He was feeling more and more outnumbered until he felt a warm feeling on his skin. The people around him gasped in surprise. He looked down and saw his upper body was on fire and had changed to night fury form.

He tried harder to calm himself down and was relieved when the warm feeling disappeared, and his upper body changed back. he quickly got onto his explanation for Astrid before the deluge of questions poured in.

"Astrid is… An aggressive girl [irritated glance from Astrid] but I want to talk about a peace. I don't want to fight."

The hat man nodded in acceptance.

"well that's nice to hear. Since I hear she's aggressive girl you don't mind if I keep her tied for now? Name's Edward by the way."

Hiccup nodded his affirmation of his question even though Astrid looked at him angrily.

"I'm sorry Astrid but It's just better if I can do this on my own. So, do you want peace between our two clans?"

Edward shrugged and gave his statement.

"yes, although I wouldn't call our people a clan. We're just Castaways far away from our homeland."

Hiccup was interested. These people weren't from around so probably had come from far away.

"where is your homeland?"

Edward was happy to explain.

"we come from a place called Britain. We were travelling over towards Britain's colonies in America before we were blown back by strong winds. We happened across this island and settled."

Hiccup was confused by these two new places that he had never heard about, it would have to be discussed later. Edward waited for a while but since Hiccup wasn't saying anything he decided to move on.

"So, do you want a tour of our place? It's a little unimpressive to you … Vikings? But it is a traditional thing In Britain"

Hiccup accepted and allowed Edward to lead him around. Astrid fumed at Hiccup's seeming ignorance to her.

The British castaway leader and Berk's heir entered a vast cavern. Inside the cavern were massive ships that Berk could never have imagined. Hiccup was in awe at the size of the ship that outsized even the dragon hunter super cruisers. He also wondered what the strange cylinders that poked out the hull.

"what are those things coming out of your ship?"

Edward understood that the Viking probably had never seen cannons before, so he explained.

"those are cannons, they use an explosive to fire a projectile at an enemy ship."

Hiccup was surprised to find out what they were and committed the idea to memory. With the thought that the tour was at it's end Edward took him back towards the entrance with a monologue along the way.

"so, it's an interesting prospect to become friends of our neighbours in this harsh place. I would normally be trying to take all these lands over for the crown, but we can't do that now."

Hiccup was interested.

"who's the crown?"

Edward continued his explanation

"the crown is our monarch, our leader. Britain has a lot of overseas territories and sailors like me are the reason why. We normally take over the lands from the natives."

While Hiccup and Edward finished up their long chat the dragons had _finally_ noticed that Hiccup was missing. They decided that they needed to get their riders out from that place and prepared to attack.

Hiccup gathered Astrid from the meeting room and Edward escorted them to the entrance.

"I am really glad we could be allies, being up here surrounded by mysterious islands isn't very secure."

Hiccup nodded his affirmation.

"I'm glad we could be friends. [looks back at Astrid and sighs] although there were a few misunderstandings [Astrid snorts in irritation]. So, I guess we'll be going, see you soo- "

He looked out and saw the three dragons getting ready to fire. Edward wondered why Hiccup had quietened down before he looked ahead and saw the dragons.

"oh royalty! What are those creatures?"

Hiccup calmed Edward down.

"those are our dragons, I guess you guys don't have one thing after all."

Edward slowly calmed down and he looked with awe at the three powerful beasts. Hiccup calmed down the dragons and remembered one thing before he departed.

"I'm… sorry to ask this but could you help us in a certain battle? We have dragons and there are other Vikings who would try to kill them."

Edward was wary of attacking other inhabitants of the islands around him but recognised that this was an important part of the alliance.

"I'll have my ships readied for combat. We will battle alongside you against your foes to further our alliance."

Hiccup had never had met a person who was so adaptable, unlike a Viking. He was eager to meet the man again but for now he had to leave. With a quick goodbye Hiccup and Astrid went home with their dragons. The wizened Edward watched them, finally seeing hope in the middle of nowhere.

At the stronghold of the dragon hunters Viggo was concocting a new ship. The name of this massive warship was the mark of business or "business mark." Because of it being a personal ship to oppose Hiccup. It was brimming with archer ports and the outside had been coated in metal to make it impossible to set aflame. Viggo was sure it would work against the pesky dragon riders.

 **A/N:**

 **Shorter than other updates since it was meant to be 1500 words, but I overshot like always.**

 **The people on the island are workers seeking to get a better life in American colonies. They are from the time that Britain took parts of America. Not quite sure about the uniforms of the time so help would be appreciated**

 **There was a slight reference to WWII in the passage which you probably saw.**


	8. 8: preparing for battle

**Hiccup's encounter with the god of night**

 **A/N**

 **Chapters were delayed due to computer trouble.**

 **I used results for pirate ship classifications to classify the British fleet.**

 **Part 8**

Hiccup returned home after his enjoyable agreement with the 'British' leader. He had given the leader a map to tell him the way to berk, so they would probably arrive in a few days. In the meantime, he was wondering about the support he could give to the small settlement, to make the deal equal. He arranged a longer patrol that would take riders around the, largely unprotected, island.

Astrid was still not quite herself. She had gone to the island and gotten captured, not only that but she hadn't been able to escape but had to wait for the peace operation of Hiccup, thirdly she was sure that Hiccup still hadn't forgiven her for her actions as he gave her disapproving looks. Eventually She had kept her freedom but lost respect.

Hiccup finished up his protection plan for the 'British' island and went on to think about Astrid's behaviour. She had been incautious and defiant and, with the responsibility of being the dragon rider leader, had to be punished in some way to make up for her wrong. He thought of the ships on the island and had an idea.

Back at the island Astrid was furious at Hiccup's brazen idea for her punishment.

"you want me to join a fishing crew for a _month?_ Just because I wanted to _explore!?_ What kind of twisted idea is _that!?"_

Hiccup braced himself against Astrid's inevitable anger. However, he was sure that this would be a good chance for her to learn to be part of a team, not as a separate individual who did what she liked and got into trouble because of it. he readied his serious expression and voice

"I'm going to tell you just this once so don't forget this. You went on a poorly planned exploration on an unexplored island _by yourself_. I'm sad to say this Astrid but you need to work on teamwork so that is why you will be joining the crew. Understand?"

Astrid was furious

"why can't I do my own thing? Why do you have to boss me around? Why do you create a _dictatorship"?_

Now Hiccup certainly didn't like being talked to like this, he normally tried to be calm and be peaceful, but Astrid wouldn't listen to that approach. Thus, came back hard and fully utilised his draconic features.

As Hiccup gathered his fury his teeth grew both longer and sharper, his eyes became slits, and an angry hurricane of purple _fury_ surrounded his darkening frame. His mouth opened to utter speech that came out as a half roar

"you will _not_ talk about me like that! You di your own thing and could've easily been injured. I have a dragon rider force to take care of and I care for each one. _a. lot_. I simply cannot have you throw yourself into such dangerous situations and simply relying on luck to get you out. I _don't want you to get hurt because of my carelessness_ "

Astrid quietened, calmed in the view of his anger, but also his compassion for her. She didn't think that Hiccup cared so much about her, but he showed her just how much he cared. His face of anger gently faded into his normal face as he turned and walked away on the harsh, grey path back to the village.

The last purple wisps spiralled into the quiet air before dissolving into nothing.

Astrid was left alone until the fisher sent for her. Hiccup had to prepare for the primary shift of patrols over the 'British' island, to test the weather and obvious threats to the island and dragons flying above.

Snotlout arrived at the dragon stables as Hiccup was preparing. His panicked face was surprising to Hiccup as he ran towards him. Fearfully, he gave his news.

"Hiccup! Viggo built a _huge_ ship! It has so many ballistae and archers no dragon could possibly get close, it even has metal around the hull to protect it from our shots! How could we _possibly_ defend against that?!"

Hiccup grimly accepted the news. Dealing with dragon hunter ships was extremely risky. One lucky shot and a dragon rider is doomed. He was lucky to get away last time but this time there would be far more weapons to contend with. He was even tempted to attack the dragon hunters from land, without dragon support.

While thinking he realised he still needed to do his patrol, he hauled the completely packed, leather saddle and went off to find Toothless

After he had found Toothless, Shadewrath also joining them, they set off for the test patrol to the island.

They went over a few miles of open sea before coming across a majestic sight.

Three ships sliced through the clear blue water, the sun shone on the pearly white sails hung from the oaken booms of the masts.

Two of the smaller ships flanked the larger one and each had its own complement of cannons: the smaller ones had 16 per side with two at the front for 34 in total, while the larger one had 50 cannons each side with 6 at the front for a total of 106 powerful cannons that gleamed majestically in the strong sunlight.

Hiccup spiralled down on Toothless onto the larger ship (I'll refer to as man o' war for a more complete name), assuming it to be the vessel of the leader he had met. His assumptions were proven when he could see a man with a large hat walk confidently towards the bow of the ship.

Hiccup landed. He was suddenly faced with the cheery face of Edwards and the stunned crew.

"hello Hiccup! Nice to see you on our journey to berk. Any news?"

Hiccup nodded grimly.

"the dragon hunters we face have a totally new warship. The scout over there said it has metal sides and many ballistae."

Edward was initially shocked at the fact the ships had metal sides but laughed when he heard the ballistae. Hiccup was confused, did he understand the problems ballistae posed to the dragons. Edward explained his laughter

" _ballistae?_ That's practically medieval! Our ships cannons can do better than old tosh like that any day!"

Hiccup was glad to hear it, if the riders couldn't get close then Edward should be able to. He asked about the ammunition supplies before continuing his journey to the 'British' Island.

He came across the small Island again and It amazed him how beautiful the island was even on his second visit: lush green forests and an imposing mountain surrounding a calm cove. He came down to the cold, grey caves for a check on any remaining inhabitants. He was surprised to see quite a few.

"why aren't you people off with Edward?"

They initially regarded him with confusion before realising it was the boy that had talked to Edward before.

"we're merchant crew, we only move goods and don't have experience of fighting. We have a ship too, but it's unarmed."

"How can you afford to sit around each day? It seems a bit dull in the caves"

The crew members stiffened at him calling their home dull but realised how the foreigner saw these caves.

"it is a bit dull, but we make do. We are annoyed that the fact the warships get to go while we have to stay here for our own safety. We haven't been on the water in years."

Hiccup nodded in understanding. He knew that for this crew losing your ability to sail would be like losing your dragon for a dragon rider. He thought on the problem of the unarmed ships and had an idea.

"if you sail to berk we could get your ships refitted for warfare, and then you could sail again without fear of being attacked."

The crew member still had a problem

"how will we reach berk? We still don't have anything to protect us."

Hiccup knew the simple solution

"easy, I can protect your ship."

The man was sceptical that the little boy could defend a large merchant ship.

"with what? The small, single man boat I assume you came over in."

Hiccup pouted. Irritated that these people were belittling him. He called out behind him

"Toothless! Show these people I didn't come across in a boat.

The crew laughed, what kind of a name was toothless? They were silenced when the dark dragon unearthed itself from the shadows. Hiccup responded to their looks of fear.

" _this_ is what I came over on. A dragon. And he should be able to protect you to berk."

The men took a little time to recover from their shock to soak in what Hiccup had told them. once they understood a cry of ecstatic happiness erupted from their faces.

Hiccup smiled, they were ready to go.

Edward stood at the wheel of his warship with a spyglass, scanning the waves for friend or foe. Eventually he took in a surprising sight: a ship was coming towards them _fast_! He was about to warn of pirates when he realised that it was their unarmed merchant ship.

Their merchant's ship quickly caught up to them without the heavy weight of weapons weighing them down. Edward was furious that the merchant had decided to sail towards them without any weapons of their own, he shouted over the sides of the ship at the merchant captain.

"what are you doing? That ship is unarmed! You could easily get shredded by any weaponry that goes through these seas!"

He was surprised to see the crew members were quite calm given their perilous situation. In a moment they shouted back the reason:

"we got air support!"

Edward looked up and saw the imposing figure of the dragon flying above the merchant ships.

The four ships continued their journey, Edward was unsure about the merchant ships but glad for the dragon that guarded him from above.

The large ships docked at Berk, right at the end of the pontoons because of their immense size. The fishing crew down at the harbour were shocked to see such imposing ships dwarf their own. They were scared until the familiar face of Hiccup on his night fury made itself known. Hiccup explained the massive ship's existence.

"these are from a new ally of this island. These ships are for helping us to defeat the dragon hunters."

One of the fishers was heavily disappointed

"how are these ships supposed to destroy their ships, I don't see any visible weaponry."

Hiccup wondered why they didn't notice the cannon ports but remembered he was still the only one on berk that knew about them.

"these ships have cannons: a weapon unseen in our area. Hey Edward! You were talking about firing blanks? How about a little performance for these fishers?"

Edward listened until he heard the full statement. He smiled and gave the orders.

"load and fire blanks! Let's show them a good ol' firing salute!"

The gunners happily obeyed, they loaded the gunpowder and rags into the cannons and, after pulling up the covers pushed the fronts out of the gun port. Then they carefully lit the fuse and waited

The fishers looked at the scene in confusion until the cannon fronts pierced through the gun ports with their cold metal gleaming. The fishers wondered what such a thing could do when a deafening sound sounded through the humid, dry air.

This single sound was followed by far more ripping shots that echoed scarily off the vertical cliffsides surrounding the harbour. The fishers could see the flashes of fire as each one discharged and rocketed back onto it's restraining ropes. Eventually the gunshots stopped, and all cannons rested with warm barrels behind the gun hatches. The gun hatches closed, and the sight of the powerful weapon was hidden. Hiccup interrupted the deathly silence

"now do you think that they have enough power?!"

The fishers eagerly nodded before hurrying back to their duties. Hiccup sighed in relief and went to tell the other riders about the good news. He slowly trekked up the steep paths leading to the village, passing villagers who rushed to see the source of the loud sound, he hoped Edward could deal with the influx of villagers but for now he had to meet the other riders.

Hiccup entered the dragon academy where the others were washing down their pampered dragons. Scales were gleaming in the sunlight and it distracted Hiccup from the grey water that pooled on the floor: he slipped and immediately knew the consequences of his stupidity. The teens looked at who had made the sudden noise and laughed upon seeing Hiccup, wet and miserable, in the waste water. Ruffnut was the first to comment.

"the great night fury rider can't even see where he's going!"

Tuffnut agreed

"exactly sister, Hiccup: good in the air but _horrendous_ on land!"

Hiccup chafed at the disrespectful comments but continued his plan

"we need to try to take that boat out when it leaves the harbour. We can't let it get out with the amount of weaponry it has on board."

Snotlout was understandably unimpressed.

"did you notice I said they had a lot of _anti-dragon_ weaponry?"

Hiccup responded calmly

"I did notice, the plan is to cause a diversion, so we can use a fleet to take down the ship."

Tuffnut thought this idea was crazy

"what kind of open topped ship could even get close to a dragon hunter ship without being shot?"

Hiccup again replied, looking at the other teens for their emotions, they were currently mystified, as were their dragons who wondered why the teens had stopped cleaning.

"we now have an ally, an ally with powerful ships."

The teens were still sceptical. Snotlout again replied using his own knowledge on the highly armoured ships.

"how powerful? We have to go against a floating _fortress_! I don't think any of our ships could have weaponry powerful enough to take that warship on."

Hiccup emphasized his earlier point

"we don't, but our ally has. For now, however, we should concentrate on patrols. You know the schedule and I need to go and make some weapons. Goodbye for now."

He gave a respectful wave to his companions before heading to the old, rugged forge. He could hear the sound of his feet on the ground in clarity as he reflected on various ideas for ship-bourn weapons. He wanted these weapons to be powerful and light to give adequate protection to the merchant ship.

He settled on his old idea of plasma launchers as well as a cannon for arching fire: a mortar. He entered the forge with his goal in sight and fired up the coals for some weapon crafting. He also added certain accessories like range finders, since he knew the mortar would need careful aiming.

Hammers clanged on metal as Hiccup kept steely determination on his task. The scrap metal gradually took shape; the cylindrical firing chambers smoothed and reinforced.

He worked through the night with the assistance of a certain god. The components were placed on their mounts and onto a cart which he would carry the completed weapons over on.

When the main components had been finished, he concentrated on the sober, gruelling task of extracting enough explosive plasma to adequately arm the weapons: ammunition for the plasma launchers and explosive charges for the mortars. The long work went smoothly.

The morning came again and now Hiccup had to move it over, He pulled the first cart over to the harbour before hiding it for the big reveal to the merchants. He continually did this until all the carts were in position, now all he had to do was bring the crew over to see their new arsenal.

The captain warily walked over to the hiding place followed by his crew, they hadn't expected Hiccup to be done this quickly, or to the supposed strength the weapons had.

They were still unsure until Hiccup drew back the curtains in a small cave and showed them the various carts of his handiworks. Their wariness disappeared as they looked in wonder at the beautiful machines of war that Hiccup had created:

Long, carefully rounded silver metal marked the elegant firing chamber of the plasma launcher. The mortar was short yet had higher calibre than the cannons used on the other British warships. Waking them from their trance, Hiccup asked them to help him transport the weapons, they gladly agreed.

Once the light but sturdy weapons were in place, Hiccup showed them how to load and fire the launcher and the mortar, as well as using the rangefinder to aim the mortar (the launcher had a straight shot)

Once satisfied, Hiccup went up to the academy to wait for the first news of the scouting missions.

He clambered over the uneven ground towards the heavy iron gates of the ring, here he met an extremely tired Ruffnut and Tuffnut, who had the first scouting mission of the day. Both were smiling slightly, and this unnerved Hiccup.

"so, what happened on the scouting trip? And _why_ are you smiling?"

Ruffnut gave Hiccup the details

"so, we saw the ship. Large, right? And we were circling over the ship when we saw the ballista positions. [Hiccup dreaded hearing the next part of this predictable story] so we went down and pranked one of the defenders."

Hiccup sighed.

"any more information _apart_ from pulling pranks?"

Tuffnut had recovered enough to take this question away from his sister.

"they seemed to have the ship in the water, Snotlout told us it was on land. I think they're close to launch."

Hiccup nodded. They would need to prepare for battle again. He urged the twins to tell the rest of the riders about the battle, except Astrid: She was in punishment after all and she had shown she was reckless. He would talk to the captain about strategy until the rest were ready.

The determined faces stood in the ring with their dragons behind him. Snotlout was going to try his best to bring honour to his family, the twins were ready for some sort of destruction, and Fishlegs was faking it. Hiccup gave the signal to leave before flying off to escort the British ships into the battle.

Viggo was highly satisfied with the ship he had designed, the hull sides were fireproof, so the riders couldn't sink the ship, the arsenal was sure to shoot down any dragon that came close, especially with the fresh recruits that had been training while the ship was built. He just needed a long scout of the area to check for traps before he launched the vessel.

Hiccup cruised warily over the fleet he was escorting. They had met only one dragon hunter ship so far and it was a quick battle: no one escaped capture to warn Viggo of the British ships incoming to the location. Eventually they would have to resettle the base close to the island and rest in preparation for the coming battle.

Astrid was fed up with having to do fishing. One session and she already knew she would much rather be flying than hauling in the next net of fish. She had heard about the dragon hunter's new ship and wanted to be part of that battle. She was sure she could join the battle, just needed to sneak out of fishing.

Astrid steadily walked off to the harbour exit. Just as she reached the foot of the giant ramp that led to the village, an elder fisher stopped her.

"Just where do you think you're going?"

Astrid stayed confident

"just trying to find something to eat, I'm hungry"

The fisher nodded warily before letting her go on her way. He had been briefed by Hiccup about Astrid's work with them but thought letting her go was fine, little did he know the brash teen had just made her getaway.

Astrid noticed she was out of sight and sprinted towards the dragon stables. Stormfly had been well cared for by Hiccup and she used this to her advantage as she saddled up in less than 5 minutes. With the saddle on, she got onto Stormfly and they headed to dragon hunter island. The fisher looked on with a mix of admiration and irritation: She had defied her tasks, but she was a spirited youth who was obviously eager to ride.

Hiccup was still guarding the ships before the sound of another dragons' wings could be heard by his sensitive dragon ears. He turned around and was appalled to see Astrid and Stormfly, in the distance but catching up.

He performed a sharp turn and raced to meet Astrid, sighing in exasperation. She only smiled smugly upon seeing Hiccup.

"You can't keep me down on stupid fishing boats! You should _know_ that by now. What are you going to do about it?"

Hiccup considered his possible decisions. A physical punishment was out of the question, but he could still do something non physical to make her regret her decision. He sped forward and turned into position in front of Astrid. She was heavily confused by his actions, surely he was going to give her a punishment? That's when she saw dark purple clouds billow from the thin body of Hiccup. Stormfly tried to dodge but was blinded by the thick clouds in front of her.

Hiccup calmly switched Toothless' s tail to stiff and He himself spread his wings. The wind caught the large appendages, lifting Hiccup swiftly into the air. A sharp turn around before switching vision to thermal. Astrid and Stormfly's thermal signature blazed from inside the thick clouds, Hiccup turned around again to chase the troublemakers.

Astrid was honestly scared in the middle of this dark cloud, she couldn't see anything apart from the occasional shots from Stormfly trying to light up the pitch black surroundings.

Hiccup slowly closed the distance, taking up a final approach onto Stormfly's back. One second later, Astrid was suddenly aware of another human's presence behind her. She turned around with a quick strike, but Hiccup easily caught it, Astrid's eyes widened when she realised Hiccup had managed to stealthily switch dragons.

"Hiccup!? How did you get here? You were on a dragon 30 metres away!"

Hiccup smiled in the pitch black, He dispersed the cloud, Astrid could clearly see his face. Astrid only just realised he had dispersed the cloud before Hiccup responded.

"Magic."

With this simple word, Hiccup Extended his wings with superhuman speed. Before Astrid could react Hiccup was whisked away by the strong winds.

Hiccup waited until he was clear of Stormfly, He switched to inverted flight before dropping below Astrid's line of sight. Once Astrid was unsure of where he had gone He went onto the next stage of his prank.

Hiccup gained speed underneath the underbelly of Stormfly before ending up in a relaxed pose in front of Stormfly.

Astrid was furiously trying to look for the elusive Hiccup, she heard a startled shriek from Stormfly and saw Hiccup in a lounging pose, even while thousands of feet in the air and held up only by his wings. Hiccup laughed at Astrid's shocked expression.

"I'm never going to consider a physical punishment, but please remember not to mess with me. Hiccup out."

The cloud gathered again, obscuring Astrid's view. Once the cloud receded again Hiccup was back on Toothless' s back. Astrid was undignified by his cheap attempt to frighten her.

"just because you can grow wings and summon clouds doesn't give you the right to order me around."

Hiccup was amazed that Astrid could keep up her attitude after the scare he gave her. He was already planning a better one. He started a reply.

"three things. One I only order you when it benefits everyone, secondly I could see you when you were in that cloud, you were scared in there. Thirdly. You should know that's not the only thing I can do to frighten you."

He continued facing her. Astrid was irritated at her humiliation, but she was distracted with a growing blue glow from Hiccup's mouth.

A bolt of plasma roared across the distance between Hiccup and Astrid, a few metres out the shot disintegrated into pieces. Astrid felt the shockwave rattle down to her core, she saw Hiccup prepare another one and finally tried to apologise.

"Stop, Hiccup, please stop!"

Hiccup dissolved the blast, waiting for Astrid's next words, hopefully of apology.

"I'm sorry Hiccup, you know that I hate being ordered around. It's … frustrating."

Hiccup nodded in understanding

"I'm glad you could apologise, I don't want to restrict your freedom, but you treated me like a pushover, I am not by _any_ means a pushover."

Having given Astrid something to think on he returned to the ships. The meeting with Astrid had been unwelcome but he felt hope as he saw his destination, the rider camp stood proudly on the shores of one of the islands surrounding the dragon hunter's stronghold.

He landed, the sun was setting. The battle could start tomorrow, so for now he rested.

A guilty Astrid landed afterwards and rushed to Hiccup to continue her apology.

 **Dragon hunter stronghold:**

The ammunition storage of the business mark was steadily being filled. The men just needed one night rest before they were ready to take control of the ship.


	9. 9: no peace for Hiccup

**NFF Hiccup's encounter with the god of night.**

 **A/N**

 **Really hope you enjoy reading this, PM/Review if you saw something I could improve or have an idea for the generation of future chapters. It is appreciated, and even small comments can improve the story a lot.**

 **There are items in the chapter which are a result of me and Night fury fanfic's correspondence.**

 **Full version, now you should be able to see why there was such a sudden plot leap beforehand. Credit goes to my weird chapter 12 for reminding me to check my stories.**

 **End A/N**

Hiccup threw off his bed's sheets with the day of battle dawning. He put on his sleek, strong armour as well as a multitude of weapons. A stretching session followed, going as far as to stretch his wings, just in case. He sighed in inevitability. For this battle he would try negotiations, but it was almost guaranteed to go badly. His abilities should protect him from any surprise attack, hopefully. Astrid had already apologised, but he still urged her to stay with the crew. He himself left his bedroom for a quiet place to form a strategy.

Astrid was up and swinging, literally. She always had been one to practise her axe technique and this battle was no different. She had fashioned practise targets and even practised taking out flying projectiles with well timed swings. She stopped after a long session, her axe needed sharpening, so she went over to see if Hiccup was able to do so. Astrid knew about her ongoing punishment but thought that.

Hiccup was still mulling over his words; the god of night made another surprise appearance. Hiccup looked at the god with confusion.

"Why are you here? We're about to go into battle."

The god of night nodded in respect to his plans. He responded calmly

"I was wondering about your plan for battle. As a god that looks out for the legendary night fury I would like to know about your battle plan."

Hiccup was taken aback, of course he had been thinking about the effect of the battle on Shadewrath and Toothless, but he was reminded he wasn't the only one. His plans were still fraught with risks if Viggo didn't accept his peace offer. The god of night, surprisingly, helped in this manner.

"I can keep both night furies from harm, however, Unfortunately I can't do the same for you, there is too much effort required just to keep two night furies safe from all harm, I hope you understand."

Hiccup nodded uncertainly, he was glad for the protection of his best friends but now felt increasingly vulnerable to attacks himself. On this side the god of night could only slightly reassure him.

"Don't worry too much, most of the danger; the archers, should be unable to penetrate your hardened scales, even at close range. I would only worry about the ballistae, those have an unbelievable amount of power."

Hiccup was yet again fundamentally strung from two contrasting feelings, relief that a certain thing couldn't harm him and an awareness of that which could.

The god of night lingered for a while, seeming to think of another way to comfort him, finding none he disappeared into the ethereal air from which he had come.

Hiccup now needed to take care of Shadewrath and Toothless. Even though the god of night said he would protect the two precious dragons, Hiccup wanted to make sure they could still fight effectively, if the situation arose, he also added some extra gear to help in battle including two ranged weapons.. Finished with this task Hiccup went off to try talking to Viggo.

He strode forward, extending his wings and tail before extending them into the headwind. The membrane flexed, catching the air. Hiccup rose into the air before banking.

He was on his way to decide the course of a battle.

Viggo was furious with his men, instead of the early start he had in mind his men were still sleeping. He couldn't take this annoyance anymore

"Wake up you miserable men, we don't have all day to take down Berk!"

His men groggily got up. Viggo groaned in exasperation, his men would take at least an hour to get properly prepared. In the meantime, he would survey the area from the pride of his ship. He strode up the gangplank with the light reflected from the water dancing on his smooth face. He did not see the young, determined boy streaking at low altitude towards him. The first sign Viggo got of Hiccup was that very whistle, before a large outline rocketed into the air in front of him.

Viggo was on high alert, he ordered the men to shoot but there was no one there. Uncontested, Hiccup descended slowly on his fully outstretched wings, his time for surprise over. Viggo watched in fascination as the strange human-dragon landed, with the barest creak of wood, on his deck. The figure he now knew as Hiccup raised his head from the landing and stared straight into Viggo's soul.

Hiccup was having a panic attack on the inside, he hoped the man would be scared would be scared into stiffness by his large silhouette. Viggo stumbled back in shock, he took a few panicked breaths before he could finally vocalise.

"What are you doing here? Stay off my ship or I'll have my archers shoot you."

Viggo's little trick was shot down by Hiccup's observations.

"What archers? All your men are still inside sleeping."

Viggo gasped at Hiccup's casual destruction of a carefully hidden secret.

"How would you know about that? [turning more serious] how do you know there aren't any hiding in the woods?"

Hiccup casually brushed some sea spray off his Armor, this man did not know the full extent of abilities brought on by his integration into a hybrid.

"I can hear your men sleeping. I have come to talk about peace."

Unknowingly, Hiccup had triggered a habitual response; Viggo would not have the shameful acknowledgement of 'defeat' they would only have Justice through war, isn't that why he had built this ship in the first place?

Viggo was now intensely aware of this humiliation, he shouted a quick

"Never, Hiccup son of Stoick!"

Before hurtling towards the boy with his weapon drawn.

Hiccup merely sighed at first, he could have had _peace_ if the violent bald man would just let it happen. Grumbling he prepared his sword for a parry. Viggo struck the boy as hard as he could, surprised when the boy took the blow easily. Hiccup threw off the blade and resumed a defensive stance before responding to his earlier statement

"To my enemies it's Midnight, you should have accepted peace."

Viggo was outraged that the boy had defended a strong shot with mocking ease, he charged again, determined to hit stronger. Hiccup charged up a plasma blast to knock the man back, releasing the powerful bolt. Viggo got lucky, his axe slicing through the plasma, splattering the superheated, exploding liquid to his sides. Hiccup realised the problem and parried again.

Edward was wide awake, early with an improvised tea held in a makeshift cup, having heated the steaming broth with Hiccup's plasma blast, a fact that intrigued him greatly. Suddenly the sound of far off battle caught his attention. he looked through his telescope to see Hiccup fighting an unknown man on an enemy ship. He then remembered to observe the ship. A sight to behold, a ship of strange design; Viking like hull covered in metal and ballistae turrets?

Edward knew Hiccup would need help, he shouted loudly to his crew to wake up. The crew, having slept on board for lack of beds in the main camp, groggily started making their way towards battle stations. Edward himself started unrolling the sails and raising the anchor.

Viggo had tried over 50 attack runs on the strangely powerful boy. He strayed out of attack range of the boy to plan his next move. On his observation, while Hiccup watched him carefully, he caught sight of movement behind 'Midnight'. he was shocked to see a massive ship slowly gaining speed towards him. Hiccup picked up on his shock, somersaulting off the ship before deploying his wings and flying quickly towards the iconic ship. Viggo recovered only to realise his target had escaped. He angrily shouted at his men, who had gathered to watch the fight, his men quickly jumped into action for fear of retaliation.

Edward sighed in relief when Hiccup disengaged, he hadn't known about Hiccup's strength and assumed he was close to defeat. He watched the hybrid as he cruised above the choppy waters. As Hiccup came closer he pitched up to meet Edward on the deck. Edward rushed to meet him and find out if there were any wounds, he was surprised that Hiccup was neither harmed or even out of breath, but Edward was curious that he still decided to duel with Viggo.

"Why were you on that ship? The owners are quite protective, from what I've seen."

Hiccup agreed with the latter and contributed his story.

"I went on that ship to ask for peace, as I did for you. Viggo didn't accept the peace."

Edward let the new information sink in, their enemy leader was now known as Viggo and he had an impressive ship, compared to normal Viking ships. Nevertheless, Edward walked away from Hiccup to look at the enemy flagship in contempt.

"If they don't like peace, they should get ready for our cannons."

Nearby, his crew members smiled, today was a chance to finally fire their live ammunition, as well as the fact they could also test Hiccup's explosive armaments. The flagship, business mark, slowly turned out to meet them in a heavily unbalanced battle

Astrid still flying to the battlefield. She was determined to show her worth in the battle she expected, no more waiting around on the side-lines, today was the time to promote her family name.

Hiccup resumed his aerial supervision of the battlefield. He wasn't going to start an attack run unless entirely necessary, since his job would be to pull any crew members from sinking ships. He had quietly promised Stoick that he would ensure the wellbeing of all the enemy sailors; Viggo had decided their fates for them after all. It had been a strange decision, outlined by the other rider's reactions after his confession.

His normal role was first strike, using the night fury's power and speed to disable fortifications, ironically the same role that Toothless had during the dragon raids, but it made sense, using the Night fury's best strengths in combat.

The decision to act as medic effectively made him an ideal target, not the best position when the god of night had warned him that he could still be hit, but it was better than letting people drown.

He hoped that Toothless and Shadewrath could safely break the enemy's ballistae, meaning he could tell Edward to hold his cannon fire; the cannons were too effective, they would only be used if the enemy could not be defeated otherwise; the same, sadly for Hiccup's genius, would go for the plasma weaponry.

After this brief consideration of battle ethics, Hiccup ignited a long range shot and fired it over their base; this would be the signal for all dragons and riders (except Hiccup of course) to begin a targeted assault.

The first off were the night furies who didn't have to worry about their riders getting ready. After a few minutes Fishlegs and came out, because they were basically inseparable anyway. Then, surprisingly, came the twins before, finally, Hookfang and Snotlout came out and now he could see why the twins had exited beforehand; Hookfang had been painted green. A quick check was obviously required, and so Hiccup rolled, dove, and eventually came close behind Hookfang.

He was going to talk casually but remembered that Snotlout probably wouldn't believe a talking dragon, thus he began creating an illusion of human Hiccup on top of himself; to keep Snotlout from surprise while still flying. The illusion 'Hiccup' spoke to Snotlout, "I assume the twins did this to your dragon?"

Snotlout nodded grimly, "they were just arguing about something and then they decided to throw paint on poor Hookfang! He can't even burn it off because it isn't flammable."

Hiccup gave a quiet incantation to clean Hookfang, drops of paint went flying as his instinctively understood spell was completed, startling both Snotlout and Hookfang, "DEAR ODIN! Hiccup, what was that?!"

Hiccup, although surprised himself at the spell's potency, had to neutralise his emotions to prevent his illusion 'Hiccup' breaking apart, "just a spell, I am not sure how I knew it, but it seems it was helpful."

Snotlout, gradually letting surprise fade into a twinge of admiration, thanked Hiccup but warned him that the twins needed punishment. Hiccup agreed quickly, before banking away and climbing quickly to resume his earlier position.

By now, Toothless and Shadewrath had come to their dive positions and were observing their targets from above. Each had their own strategy, such was the nature of solitary dragons, Shadewrath almost completely ignored his counterpart in favour for concentration on the battle while Toothless, used to the teamwork of human strategy, wondered why Shadewrath hadn't talked to him once since they took off.

Even while Toothless was distracted, Shadewrath had decided to lead the attack; His wings tucked in as he prepared to dive. Toothless, reluctantly, prepared to follow up Shadewrath's attack, since he wasn't sure what he would do, hovering stationary as the other dragon darted straight towards the ship.

Giving very slight changes in direction, Shadewrath expertly dodged projectiles coming towards him. Eventually, Toothless could see a soft blue glow on Shadewrath's neck; signs of a shot.

Shadewrath was wondering why Toothless hadn't started diving, even as he himself was performing an attack run. His lack of focus was unpunished at the highest parts of his dive; his reflexes were enough to avoid the projectiles and the ones that would have caused him alarm suspiciously changed course.

He gave slight notice to this fact, but he reasoned he could ask Hiccup or Toothless later, before he realised what relationship he and the rider pair must be at for him to think like that… ' _damnit_ ,' he could feel an instinctual rage at his domestication, but that wouldn't help now, it was better to stay on task. He quit his pondering to prepare a shot; one that, he hoped, would show them that he was far more than a simple pet; a long projectile formed in Shadewrath's mouth as he played with one of his most primitive, powerful magic. The shot glowed bluer than usual and sparks could be seen.

On the Deck Viggo watched with a shocked expression as the Night fury came closer. The simple fact that none of the projectiles could actually hit the Night Fury was his biggest cause of concern. The beast came closer and closer until the dreaded opening of the mouth, the blue glow, and the release of the shot. Viggo's world was consumed with light as the shot impacted before he blacked out, his muscles spasming as the shot's magic consumed all people that were on the top deck.

Edward, standing behind the steering wheel of his ship as his normal navigator rested, watched the impact.

He had been looking past the sails of his warship as the first black dragon attacked. He was expecting some damage to be done to the ship, but he wasn't prepared to see the lightning strike in broad daylight. The lightning completely engulfed the ship and gave worrying sparks from the metal sides where it impacted, which Edward had no doubt were electrified.

Toothless had been watching with slight curiosity as Shadewrath approached, curious at what shot he would attempt, but after the bolt hit and lightning struck, Toothless was filled with dread. Night Fury lightning was powerful, but primitive for a reason. Only those who have gotten used to the magic are immune to its psychological effects; increased feral behaviour. Toothless' fears were realised when he saw Shadewrath's form gain a gaseous trail; obviously Shadewrath hadn't practised lightning magic enough, the lack of control over his Fury gas a poor indicator to just how much Shadewrath's mind had changed.

Toothless banked and chased after the errant night fury, ready to subdue him before he did serious damage to other dragons, their riders, or even Toothless himself; since night furies are typically violent towards their own kinds in fits of uncontrollable rage, depths of emotion only accessible if one used the prohibited magic.

Hiccup had been intensely observing the fallout from the first strike, he was surprised but thankful that the first hit hadn't been explosive, therefore no crew members were in the water. His appreciation was cut short when he, like Toothless, spotted the strange behaviour of Shadewrath's very body. Hiccup now had two problems to deal with, now that the business mark, although stunned for a moment, began to refresh its crew from those underneath the main deck; there was no leader for the confused crew coming up from below, but they could still take control of the weapons.

To make matters worse, he caught sight of a rebellious Astrid making straight for the ship. The other dragon riders were, thankfully, hovering still after the strange showing of electric magic. Hiccup now had to get Astrid out of the fight, before she either unleashes Stormfly's fire onto the unsuspecting crew or the new crew shoots out the pair with sheer firepower.

To prevent this scenario, he decided to take Astrid out of the fight, again. He checked that there weren't any other serious hazards before rolling upside-down gracefully and falling out of the sky.

Breaking out of the swift fall with an exaggerated flare of his wings, Hiccup used his momentum to catch up to the pair, ducking underneath view once he was close enough. Once underneath the unsuspecting duo, he decided that getting Astrid off Stormfly would be the best option, lest Stormfly help Astrid to escape. He gave a short dive then immediately gained altitude; headbutting Stormfly in the chest. His original plan to distract Stormfly worked a bit too well; Astrid was tossed from her mount by the sudden movement, causing Hiccup to turn sharply to catch her.

He caught her with his talons and started gaining altitude. Astrid, unaware of the fact she had switched dragons, decided to compliment Stormfly, "Good job girl, that was quite some jolt. I'm lucky that you were so alert, or I would…" she eventually looked up to see a night fury head instead of her own Deadly Nadder. Her brief shock was overturned immediately. She now knew that the jolt was a trick and now, in the custody of Hiccup, she would receive a very irritated lecture.

Hiccup kept flying, an irritated Astrid clutched in his claws and a confused Stormfly following closely behind. He knew his troubles weren't over yet. Once he had dropped off the misbehaving teenager, he would have to return safeguarding every warrior's life. Hiccup smiled ruefully, the gods never let him have a moments rest.

Meanwhile the ships of Edward, accompanied by the dragon riders, came closer to fighting with the proudest ship that Viggo had to offer.


	10. 10: Hey Astrid

**NFF-Hiccup's encounter with the god of night chapter 10**

 **A/N:**

 **I noticed the previous chapter error when I started this one, so now you know why it took me so long**

 **End A/N**

With Astrid released, Hiccup now had a front seat view of Toothless and Shadewrath's brawl. It was a ferocious stalemate, Shadewrath did not dare take physical form while Toothless fired round after round into his gaseous body, while Toothless became ever more frustrated at the ineffectiveness of his shots.

Knowing that physical battle would not work, Hiccup would try talking to him; Hoping that his typical pacifistic approach would prevent the harm done between two of his closest friends.

The ship battle was still approaching, cannons and Ballistae almost in range of each other.

But the ballistae were not trained on Edward, instead they were trying to find the right way to hit the battling Night furies; hoping to bring one down.

Hiccup flew in front of the confused Shadewrath, pulling his head left to be heard by Shadewrath, "Calm down! You're fine, it's just me and Toothless, no one is trying to hurt you."

His voice could be heard faintly by the berserk Night Fury; thankfully Shadewrath hadn't tried to take him out, again thanks to Toothless' barrage.

Shadewrath slowly recovered, helped by focusing on Hiccup's non aggressive actions. Hiccup himself was a nervous wreck in spite of his actions; he knew that Shadewrath could kill him easily; one fury blast enough to tear his body into ribbons from sheer concussive force if Shadewrath went for a killing shot.

Hiccup's assumption, that Shadewrath could recover, gradually began to become true; especially with the unseen help of the God of Night.

The god slowly influenced control over the rebellious Fury, suppressing violent urges. Eventually the dragon became physical, before responding to Hiccup, "H-Hello there, don't know what came over me there, shouldn't have used that shot. Are you ok?"

Hiccup was incredulous; the Night Fury that he was so worried about only cared about him? This was quite a show of empathy for which he never could have expected from Shadewrath.

Their feelgood moment was interrupted by a ballistae bolt between the both of them.

Hiccup flinched and Shadewrath's form became vague again, the anger at the shooter of the bolt reversing his earlier calm.

The god of Night had been happy with the progress of Shadewrath but stopped dead when he observed the bolt. Shadewrath's anger peaked again and he worried that the Night Fury would kill Hiccup as a result. The good news was his allegations were briefly subdued as Shadewrath turned and pursued the ship. The bad news was that Shadewrath was not in the mood to spare anyone.

Hiccup had no option to calm Shadewrath now that his rage was directed at the ship. Hiccup had no way to interrupt Shadewrath with a blast; since that would mean injuring his friend. The only option he had was to save the crew however possible. He dived after Shadewrath, determined to make sure he didn't follow through in this state of rage.

Edward was not sure what he was seeing; the Night Fury, after exhausting its first shot on the ship, became… ghostly? He had never seen anything like it before, allocating it as part of the magic that resided here in the archipelago. There had been some kind of showdown, first with one chasing the ghostly Night Fury and then another coming face to face.

This had been distracting him from the battle. He looked back and saw his target; now within the ship cannon's range. He pulled the ship around for a broadside, before noticing that the ghostly one was coming straight at the target. He ordered his gunners to standby, hesitating for fear he might hit their allies accidentally.

He saw the same Fury that had faced aforementioned ghost Fury diving right behind him, and slowly overtaking. Then, with interested eyes for the outcome of this latest stunt, watched as the initial Fury prepared the shot.

Then, in extremely mysterious circumstances, the pursuing fury overtook the charging one and then pulled up, intercepting the shot with its own. The countermeasure wasn't enough; such a powerful shot dispersed a bit, but the majority still hit the defending Fury.

Edward kept watching in horrified curiosity as the body fell, gradually transitioning to Hiccup's hybrid form.

Shadewrath was struck by turbulent, conflicting emotions. He gained the ability to turn gaseous when angry and after having used primitive magic, but the same force could not decide what to do with him now, what kind of transformation he should undertake.

The following events surprised all; Shadewrath's form started flickering and morphing into random shapes, following his huge onset of guilt and sadness. The changes became increasingly amplified until they stopped; with Shadewrath now three times the size he was before. His body evidently couldn't take the stress of such a strange warping of reality and so he fell unconscious.

Snotlout saw Hiccup fall out of the sky. The initial causes could be ignored due to the far greater threat of Hiccup's untimely death. Snotlout contemplated his options, before deciding to save Hiccup; a hint of irritation at having to save 'useless' evident even with his choice made.

He turned towards the falling dragon boy and pursued him with all speed. He couldn't make it before Hiccup hit the water, but the body floated for long enough for him to be able to rescue it. He absently internally cursed that Astrid wasn't there to see it.

He was interrupted by a flash of blue scales that took the floating boy before launching up in the air. When he looked up he saw a familiar face; Astrid herself. Although Snotlout knew she shouldn't be here, so he shouted up. "Really babe? You just can't let Snotlout embrace his heroic side, can you!?"

Astrid gave a snide smirk before replying, "what heroic side Snotlout? You mean when you're trying to get attention?"

Snotlout kept his internal agony suppressed behind a face of indifference. She was also out of range now, her original deceleration only temporary for her climb.

There was still the problem of Shadewrath's oversized body, which Toothless now watched fall to the ground; the brief catches of wind on his massive wings helping him to avoid the same fate as Hiccup. He was in two minds; helping Shadewrath would be the nice thing to do, he had no other subjects to save (Hiccup had already been rescued by _the girl_ ). But on the other side why would he? Shadewrath had forced Hiccup to throw himself in front of the shot, Hiccup was now injured thanks to Shadewrath's actions.

He had to calm down, Shadewrath's attack hadn't been intentional and now he lay still and injured, needing help. He would need something to carry the large body, but he could find it easily; especially with a boat force nearby.

Having put his mind to rest about the issue of Hiccup's assailant, Toothless first glided close to the downed Night Fury; where he wouldn't help just yet. Instead he simply uttered forgiveness of Shadewrath's attack for the sake of giving honour to the unfortunate member of his own species.

Next he would have to gain the assistance from the ship. He decided to go to Edward, since he was the only one of the 'British' forces he knew well. He landed with a loud thump on the wooden deck, in front of the steering wheel where he saw his target.

His comedic attempts to get Edward to go was both unsuccessful and unnecessary; Edward had already seen the anomaly and was contemplating whether to turn his ship. The presence of Toothless subconsciously made him pull down on the left side of the wheel to turn the ship left.

The gunners, who had initially been surprised as the ship veered to cause their targets to fall out of sightline, rushed to staff different cannons in hope to catch the enemy ship by surprise even if they were turning.

This disturbance below caught Toothless' attention; he leaned over an opening to see men rushing by. He rushed back in surprise and almost cowered next to Edward.

Edward gave a shy smile at the childish behaviour of a creature known in tales to be overly violent, before acknowledging his current proximity, "I guess this is how Hiccup feels, having his dragon close by…"

Toothless gave him a disgruntled look. Edward apologised, aware that he assumed the dragon couldn't understand him; clearly the Night Fury had a lot more intelligence than he knew about. "sorry about that, let's get your giant friend on board."

He tied the wheel in place while setting up enough cranes to lift the spectacular bulk of Shadewrath from off the ground where he landed, helped by the ship's carpenters who he summoned from below deck.

Viggo was only now recovering, and the world around him looked very different; for starters the hated Night Fury could not be seen in the skies, instead the men that had sheltered under the deck were now firing at a hideous Zippleback.

He slowly stood up and acknowledged the situation; the Zippleback was hard to kill, due mainly due to the strange flying pattern of the riders. Also, the flagship of the many weird boats coming to get him had swerved, making for a large pile of black on some soil nearby.

There were still many ships coming after him though; some with odd metal ends jutting out of the hull, glinting in the sunlight. Others didn't have such objects, instead multiple tubes stood on swivel joints, all pointed at him by strange-clothed men.

The new British fleet composition needed a new leader, and Harold was ripe to take the position; He was a disciple of Edward, having learned a lot from this man.

He though was far more interested in the capabilities of his new weapons; a gifted strategy master who had pestered Hiccup for hours about the abilities of the plasma bolt launchers while they were fitted.

Now he was ready to make Edward proud.

He was leading a merchant ship, strange choice for a flagship, but he had faith in these new weapons, in fact they were already coming into the effective range. Realising this, he turned for a broadside, exposing the rows of launchers mounted on deck, before giving an order, "find the ship in your range-finders and FIRE!"

There was a brief moment of frantic activity before the shots went off in unison.

The blue bolts came closer to their target before striking the sides with incredible force; Many of the ship's men were knocked off, destined to meet a watery grave, had a god not intervened.

Night took in the view of the first salvo and knew he must get someone to respond, for he, like his Night Fury creations, did not revel in killing consciously. Thus, with 2 of the 3 night furies inactive, He communicated with Toothless, "TOOTHLESS! I need your help right now!"

Toothless startled for a moment, before giving his reply to his creator. "What is it, God of Night? Hiccup is safe, and Shadewrath will soon be as well, is there anything else you want me to do?"

Night winced at this forced acknowledgement of his status, "you know that I don't care much for positions, but that doesn't matter now; what matters is that there are men in the freezing sea that need rescuing before they drown."

Toothless was reluctant to rescue their enemy but nodded in acceptance of the honour behind the duty. He launched off the deck to the astonishment of Edward and plucked the struggling men from the water, ignoring their surprise in favour of getting the task done.

He graciously dumped them on a nearby shore, four at a time, until finally finishing this short distraction. He came back overhead to watch how the situation had changed.

Viggo had taken the blast without falling off, and now the shear adrenaline coursing through his veins removed any semblance of tiredness from him. He did not appreciate being fired upon first and ordered his ballistae to shoot at anything that strayed into range. They attempted to bring down Toothless, even while he was clearly taking the drowning crew, but had little affect since every shot curved away; thanks to Night's protection.

Meanwhile, in Astrid's home, Hiccup woke up on Astrid's bed, still slightly moist from his sea crash. Sitting up, Hiccup investigated how bad the damage was to his stomach. Although it was huge, and blood could be seen flowing, it had been bandaged by someone Hiccup did not know; since he had never been inside Astrid's house before. He even worried for a moment he had been captured by Viggo.

A door opened, and Hiccup's Fury eyes snapped onto the newcomer, Astrid. His claws dug into the bed by instinct before he came to his senses and realised what he'd done "Thor damnit, sorry about that Astrid."

Astrid didn't answer, taking Hiccup's expectant wait as an opportunity to close the distance until she was face to face. Hiccup was getting tired of this game already, "what do you want Astrid, I'm still needed out there, even with the injury."

Astrid finally showed emotion, "NO! you stay right here. You apologise for holding me back, and maybe, just maybe, I'll let you off without more cuts and bruises."

Hiccup didn't respond for a moment; she shouldn't have been there, although she was just trying to help, his indecision was pushed aside as Astrid raised a hand to strike. Hiccup responded quickly yet casually and without resorting to anger; he grabbed the offending hand by the wrist and pulled it down to her side, before starting a plea, "Astrid-"

He was cut off when Astrid tried again to strike him, in slight desperation. Hiccup countered it again and pleaded again, with more urgency this time, "Astrid! I need to get back to-" She went off again, shouting, "you apologise, or else you don't go out." And then, astoundingly she raised her hand to strike for the third time, her wrist guards allowing her to slide out of Hiccup's grip.

The punch almost got to its destination before Hiccup grabbed it again, although this was not as perfect as it had been before. His claws cut her wrist due to the improper position. Hiccup didn't notice this and took Astrid's suppressed cries of pain as cries of hidden sadness.

With such a probable motive in mind Hiccup attempted to gain the moral high ground, "look, I am sorry Astrid, and hopefully you can fully forgive me later on, but I-"

His speech was cut off as she shook her head furiously, before blurting out the truth, "NO! I'm not sad, I'm hurt! You cut me!"

Hiccup's day was getting pretty bad, unluckily for him it was about to get worse.

Night felt the confirmation of one of those closely linked to him using magic. Having investigated this occurrence he found out it was none other than Hiccup; his compassion towards Astrid had accidentally caused special venom to be secreted from the base of Hiccup's dragonesque claws into Astrid's bloodline, where nothing special told her of what just happened.

Hiccup, meanwhile, couldn't bear the fact that he had accidentally hurt Astrid, and stayed to console her. It was then that he heard a voice in his mind, 'my boy, you've accidentally infected Astrid,'

Hiccup's mind went wild with the meaning of that sentence, 'have I poisoned her, could she die?' The god of Night thankfully gave a, 'no' and continued, 'she will most likely just become a hybrid of the first pure dragon that she touches.'  
'surely not!'

'I'm afraid so. By the way, she went off.'

Astrid had enough of Hiccup's shock and decided to mount Stormfly to get away from it all, but she was interrupted before she could lay her hands on the dragon. "Astrid wait! Don't touch Stormfly!"

Astrid retracted her hand due to the strange nature of the command but regarded him with extreme suspicion. Hiccup continued, "you have to listen-" Astrid put her hand on Stormfly, "great, now you're a shape shifter. Congratulations."

Astrid, confusingly for her, did not have the hybrid features of Hiccup; since she had not lost her human form to death. Hiccup would have to coax it out of her, He came closer and instantly she responded by going into a fight stance, now with a spiny tail. Hiccup brought this up to her, "if you want proof, just look behind you."

Astrid gave a quick glance, but that was all that it took for her to notice the difference. She looked again and saw it, swaying slowly, spines extended.

She panicked.

Spines flew in all directions as Astrid tried to rid herself of her new tail. She even resorted to trying to cut it off with her axe but hesitated when it brought her pain.

Hiccup had been watching this with frightened curiosity; his wide eyes accentuating this fact. He watched until one spine came towards him, making it necessary to bring up his coat of scales to deflect it. And he winced when she came at it with her axe. Thankfully she stopped before major damage could be done.

Hiccup sighed, this was indirectly his fault, and he needed to do something to reconcile her, "tell you what, since I did this to you… *sigh* I apologise, and you can come into battle and show them your bravery"

 _This_ lit Astrid's face up, she even hugged Hiccup, "thanks Hic! Why didn't you say something like that in the first place?"

He started a smart-ass reply, "maybe, just _maybe_ it was because you tried to punch-"

He got a well-deserved slap for his troubles.

He soon recovered and gave her the encouragement to leave before shifting into his Night Fury form and flying away. Astrid followed, her excitement to joint the battle clearly shown on her face

Snotlout was re-orienting himself, looking for a gap in the defences he could use to make a pompous entrance

Ruff and Tuff were _still_ dodging projectiles, their ability to trick opponents almost unrivalled.

Edward was waiting by the edge of the ship; watching both Shadewrath's unbelievable form and the actions of his next-in-line leader.

Viggo was regretting his life decisions, a feeling that got even worse when he saw a night fury and Nadder flying back, as well as the circling Night Fury who had returned to his post after landing on the ship. He gathered himself, drank a large cask of mead and roared in challenge.  
 **  
End of chapter**


	11. 11: Viggo's boat

**Hiccup's encounter with the god of night.**

 **I notice that there is a lot of different perspectives. I will address this issue by giving each one their own description, starting with Viggo. Each perspective shift will be shown with a double spacing in between.**

 **I've had a look at previous chapters and I'm disappointed with how irrelevant the grimora scene was. So I'll try to make it relevant at some point or another. If you have seen any other themes that were discontinued too soon then please tell me. I really want my stories to function.**

 **Thanks for reading this story to here. I know that some chapters are pretty bad, (most chapters after chapter 1) and so I congratulate you for getting this far. Hopefully you see this chapter as an improvement, if not then please tell me how I can make it better.**

 **Chapter 11.**

Viggo could now look at the scene with fresh eyes. He took notice of all their adversaries before re-ordering his fleet; heavier weapons finally turning to engage the ships and anti-dragon weaponry shifting from Ruff and Tuff to aim at all airborne adversaries with focus on the more powerful dragons.

He took in the sight; the Monstrous Nightmare broke off the approach, the ships also turned to broadside in response to the first salvo while the threatening launchers were assumed to be single use. Viggo was already more confident with this sudden change; he was shown hints of a more promising outcome to this battle and it was almost as intoxicating as the mead.

Somehow the situation got even better when the Night Fury and Nadder stopped to pay more attention to the giant Night Fury rather than contribute their firepower to the battle.

Snotlout took the missed opportunity with anger; he had to get close, but the hail of fire prevented such an action. Realising that his current abilities didn't give him the opportunity to attack without an assured death he came over to the twins to plan another attack, "Ruff and Tuff. Can you give them something more distracting? I can't get close to them."

The twins, to absolutely no-one's surprise, were ecstatic at the opportunity to create more carnage; Tuffnut yelled ecstatically in agreement while Ruffnut gave a worryingly wide smile, "that's what we do best."

Snotlout was left with hope intermingled with the suspicion; the usual mix when one relied on the Twin's help. He was glad, however, when the twins layered the ship's deck with a thick layer of gas; perfect enough for an entrance. He was about to make Hookfang ignite, before remembering from previous experience the result of fire in explosive gas.

Hiccup and Astrid raced back to the scene of the battle; with Astrid astride Hiccup due to the strange, sudden departure of Stormfly after the touch.

Thus, Hiccup now had to contend with the added weight of a rider; causing him to fly erratically. They caught sight of the phenomenally-sized Night Fury and were briefly distracted before Astrid urged Hiccup to ignore the strange event; observation could come after the battle.

Focus restored, Hiccup came closer to Viggo's ship in a silent glide, finding a route through the gas before alighting gently on the prow and letting Astrid off. Hiccup followed close behind, staying in dragon form for his own and her protection.

Viggo was taken off-guard by the sudden use of Zippleback gas; the sudden silence from his men told him that they couldn't see any of their attackers. There was a sound of talons on wood and Viggo immediately regretted that he couldn't see through the clouds to work out who had just landed; although the screams of "MONSTROUS NIGHTMARE!" soon gave him all of the information he needed to know.

He came over to the source of the shouts as fast as the limited visibility allowed him. Unfortunately, he still hadn't found the dragon when another thud signalled another arrival. He cursed under his breath; to keep the dragons from guessing where he was, before advancing.

Viggo caught sight of the Monstrous Nightmare first; a dark silhouette and then raised his weapons before coming close enough for a strike; gathering small groups of his frightened crew that he encountered along the way and ordering them to follow up his strike.

His sword missed on the first attempt; the appearance of the silhouette made it hard to judge distances. The rest of the crew, repeating his actions, found the same result as their swords went through the patch of gas where they assumed the Nightmare was.

The silhouette responded to the sound of their blades swinging through empty air and oriented his head towards the newcomers.

The dragon then neglected the use of his fire in favour of physical attacks to the enemies; knocking the unprepared crew unconscious as Viggo barely caught the sweeping strikes on his sword, before retreating wisely before his opponent got lucky. Eventually he had enough of waiting for the inevitable strike from the darkness and retreated to the hold of the ship.

Hiccup had an unparalleled view of the ship; thermal vision letting him see a large number of people on deck. Annoyingly, for his chances of entering the battle, he could see Hookfang, but could not discern Snotlout from the random Vikings in front of him.

He also couldn't discern the lucky arrow that came closer to his face; only noticing the heat signatures being blocked at the last second before the arrow hit.

The metal tip struck scale and ricocheted.

Sparks flew.

The superheated fragments dispersed into the flammable gas surrounding the wincing Night Fury, the gas finally heated to its flash point and began a fire; expanding throughout the entire ship.

The blast blew all bipeds off their feet until only a bewildered Hiccup and Hookfang still stood in the slowly dispersing smoke aftermath. They could only look on and cough the burnt air out of their lungs as the remaining crew recovered as well. Hiccup scanned the resurgent crew before tending to the shocked Astrid; guiding her back into full awareness.

Astrid took a while to lock back into her combat psyche and then leaped off Hiccup into the fray; yelling a war cry as she brought her axe to bear. The sudden gusto of the attacking girl took many off guard as Astrid knocked out as many guards as she could; rolling, spinning and even subconsciously tail swiping the crew.

Eventually it was just her and Snotlout on deck allowing Astrid to take a breather after intensive activity. However, Viggo had been waiting for the perfect opportunity for a retaliation and this was it; he went behind Astrid and took her hostage with a knife to her throat and with all her human limbs restrained.

Now, with Hiccup and Snotlout looking on in fear, he began his ransom; knowing that Hiccup would rather do anything before letting one of his friends die, "So here's the deal. I don't do this often, but you've forced my hand here, Hiccup. Either you surrender and let us take your dragons or Astrid dies."

The threat got through perfectly; Hiccup was, as predicted, willing to lose in order to save his teams. His words, had he spoken them, would have terminated the battle, submitted everything for the life of his team mate.

Astrid, however, was not a damsel in distress. Instead she was a warrior, now with draconic traits, and she took full advantage of her unique abilities; extending her tail to push Viggo away before using the extra range to give a running attack.

Viggo hadn't expected the sudden turn of events and therefore could only raise a terrible block as Astrid brought the offense to him. The initial running attack by Astrid was repelled, but at the cost of Viggo losing his balance and falling.

Astrid never let the disoriented opponent stand again, instead pummelling him with strikes designed to weaken him before she could knock him out. He got lucky though, a fortunate hook of her axe let him disarm her before he attempted to stand again.

He never got the chance.

Hiccup hadn't been idling while watching this scene unfold; he was waiting for a chance to strike and with this shift in the battle he was able to do so. He started running forward as soon as the man was exposed and delivered a brutal ram to his chest; causing the dense man to finally fall unconscious.

The parties still conscious on board breathed heavily as the climax of the fight had finally passed. Astrid recovered quickly and complimented Hiccup for his actions, "thanks for the help, Hiccup."

Normally, due to his increased self-confidence, Hiccup would have accepted the comment with pride. However, the affect of having his crush compliment him was shocking; the mighty dragon within him and the god was silenced by a broken Hiccup who resorted to meaningless gibberish.

Astrid was estranged by the weird reaction and engaged a more caring side of herself to try to deal with the problem, "Hiccup, what's wrong? Was the bump on the head too much?"

The functioning part of Hiccup's psyche, the essence of dragon and a god, were struggling to put together the broken pieces of Hiccup's personality; they were struggling for now, and so the draconic personality asserted control to reply. He spoke calmly, embarrassed and confused face instantly resolved into a patient and grounded one, "I am not okay at the moment. Something about the way you gave that compliment caused my human side to break. I do not know why, but you'll have to speak with my dragon side for the moment."

Someone could have misinterpreted the former part of that sentence as a romantic comment. In fact, Snotlout misinterpreted the former part of that sentence as a romantic comment,

"Are you _seriously_ pretending to act strange to impress the girl Hiccup? I've seen you do a lot of stupid things, but never as dumb as this."

Had he been talking to the human side he probably could've been forgiven, but Hiccup's draconic psyche did not allow for such comments. "You should shut your mouth before you get yourself killed, Snotlout. Do not think that insulting a dragon is a wise thing to do."

The tensions had risen.

Luckily, Snotlout had lost his courage as soon as he realised that this new personality wasn't kidding about killing him. Astrid was outraged that Hiccup had just threatened Snotlout with death, "Hiccup, I don't know where you're getting these ideas from, but don't you dare become violent over a simple comment."

The dragon side of Hiccup, although perfectly sentient and able to debate his way out of complicated situations, didn't like the rising hostility, "Astrid, leave me alone. I do not wish to carry out my threats, but I will if forced. If you need any encouragement to respect my presence I will inform you that you will die if you decide to continue this."

Astrid was stunned at the escalation of the situation; to the extent that she jus looked at Hiccup in silence until Snotlout grabbed her hand gently and guided her gently to Hookfang. Hiccup just looked on with a neutral expression until Hookfang took off. Then the Night Fury prepared to go off to sleep until Hiccup recovered; hanging from the boom to avoid being vulnerable on the ground.

One crew woke up groggily; a mistake rectified with a precise strike of Hiccup's tail to his head. Then, with a quick check that none of the others were awake as well, the dragon-style Hiccup cocooned himself in his wings to sleep; a cute position that contrasted the inner fury of the being.

Meanwhile Toothless and Stormfly had been tending to the unconscious Shadewrath; watching over him as Edward's ship prepared to take him on board. The crew made and mounted large cranes to bear the weight.

Then they tied ropes to Shadewrath's chest and tail base before lifting the hulk of Night Fury onto deck; displacing many crew members who would typically operate there to make room for the massive dragon.

Harold had seen the entire fight from a distance while debating whether to contribute his own fire again. He saw the interesting combat of the dragon riders, an explosion and then finally a large red dragon leaving with two humans, leaving one behind who went to sleep on the boom of the ship.

He came closer to the inactive warship and pulled alongside it; preparing to board the ship, take prisoners and leave. Their ship got into range and his crew rushed to lock down the enemy vessel while Harold went to talk to the Night Fury hanging from the sail beam, "is that you, Hiccup? are you okay?"

The Night Fury unfurled his wings and regarded the man on board with curious caution, "I'm not sure who you are, but I can see that you are an ally and so I warn you that I am not myself at the moment, do not anger me in any way."

Harold was momentarily distracted before responding rationally; Hiccup may be in a bad mood, but he could still make him an offer without angering him, "I seek to cause you no distress. I just wanted to know if you're fine staying on this ship? We'll be towing it, for your information, so you can leave if you want."

Hiccup nodded; his dragon psyche was happy that the man had been so polite with his information and he gladly explained to him what he would do, "I will stay here for the moment, thanks for the information."

His interaction complete, Hiccup curled up to sleep again, concentrating his energy again on rebuilding Hiccup's normal personality.

Harold took one last look at the hanging dragon before coordinating some of his crew to establish a towing line between their ships.

Hiccup's dragon personality retreated into his head to check how much Hiccup was recovering. He heard a slurred, "Astrid" from the human personality and resolved that he still had a long way to go.

Shadewrath's form had been manipulated to let the crew access their hatch before the large body was left alone on deck. Toothless and Stormfly had smoothly followed, checking his body continually for any sign of regained consciousness. It took a long time before Toothless lost enough attention on Shadewrath to notice that Stormfly shouldn't be here, "Stormfly, are Astrid and Hiccup okay?"

Stormfly shook as she regained her connection to the outside world; her attention to this freak of nature had made her completely forget about Hiccup and Astrid. She had originally went to check how Toothless was, but now was reminded that he wasn't the only person important to her, "I don't know, they were having a strange conversation before I left and then I can't say what happened next."

"you left them behind?" Toothless said, with irritation coming into his voice.

"yes." Stormfly admitted; knowing the connection between Toothless and Hiccup (Toothless had only left Hiccup because he thought that Stormfly could take care of him). She had to redeem herself, and so she did a scan of the air and found one missing person; Astrid on the Monstrous Nightmare.

She tried to tell Toothless about it, but found that Toothless had found his own priority target; Hiccup on the mast of the enemy ship. He distracted himself with his observation for a few more moments before turning to Stormfly, "Hiccup is on the enemy ship by himself. I trusted you to keep him safe and now I see him on a hostile ship. What am I supposed to think about you now that I know that!?"

Stormfly hung her heavy head in shame; being in trouble with another dragon was bad, being in trouble with a night fury was worse, "I assumed that they would stay in Berk, I could never have anticipated they would try to attack."

Toothless sighed, holding back his anger to settle at a later time. Instead he would try to get back into contact with his lost friend, "let's fly over to Hiccup, hopefully he's fine, but if he's wounded, you're in trouble, if he's dead… you're dead."

Stormfly gulped; Toothless was obviously serious with his threat and he could most definitely carry it out. The position Hiccup now hung in was now looking awfully similar to a butcher's catch on hooks.

The thoughts of the worst case scenario kept running through their heads, even ignoring the allied ships manoeuvring around them.

Then they touched down on the deck where they could find out the truth. Stormfly touched down quite gently, befitting her unsure attitude while Toothless landed roughly; padding out the awkward landing by turning it into a loping walk towards Hiccup.

Finally, in front of their point of interest, Toothless spoke to the hanging figure, hoping for a response, "Hiccup, can you hear me? Are you okay?"

For a frightening length of time, nothing happened. Just as Toothless turned to Stormfly with murder in his eyes, Hiccup's wings moved and his head revealed itself, "hello, I am not okay at the moment."

Toothless changed from anger to shock and then happiness as Hiccup finally showed signs of life, although his behaviour was strange, "I'm glad to hear you're okay, but what's wrong?"

Hiccup stayed silent for a while before calmly responding, "Hiccup's human-based personality is broken, something that Astrid said completely broke him and now Hiccup is only sustained by me, his draconic side, and Hiccup's godlike personality, who's trying to fix Hiccup back to his former self."

The idea of different personalities in one mind was alien to Toothless and seemed to be an example of a psychological defect, "are you ever going to be okay? 3 personalities is not normal."

Hiccup slouched, Toothless wasn't very sensitive to the fact that he was talking to one of these 'faulty personalities'. Toothless also didn't know that this was completely acceptable for someone in Hiccup's condition, "Remember you're not talking to Hiccup's normal personality. I am not as capable of human emotion as Hiccup's normal self. Also, do not believe this is a disease; Hiccup was loaded with both draconic powers and god powers and therefore me and that weird personality of god-Hiccup were developed to file both sides of that away. We occasionally guide Hiccup and tell him what to do."

Toothless took a while to take that in, gradually acclimatising to the idea that Hiccup's split personalities were a result of his blessing. He wasn't allowed the opportunity to speak, however, since the dragon in front of him gave some good news, "Hiccup seems to have recovered now, it was nice talking to you. Goodbye"

There was then a brief set of rapid twitches before the reconstructed human personality settled into his form again. His eyes closed, then opened wide before adopting the behaviour of someone that had just woken up, "By Odin that was a strange dream. At least, I hope it was a dream, why was there an arrogant version of myself? Ah well, at least it's done now."

He then finally noticed Toothless and Stormfly standing there, "Hi Toothless, Hi Stormfly. Sorry for sleeping. I only remember Astrid saying something and me blacking out, is everything okay?"

Toothless looked at Hiccup with concern in response, "I'm not sure, are you aware that there are two other presences in your mind?"

The news made Hiccup give a brief reaction, but not surprise about the new presences, "I know them a little, I suspect that some of my tempers were their doing, but mostly I know them for the help they give me for abilities. Why is this relevant?"

"I met a personality of yours that wasn't so friendly; dragon-based if I remember correctly."

The realisation hit Hiccup; that everyone around him had been subjected to his dragon psyche; he knew that the dragon was helpful to him, but continually suspected all non-dragons around him for the smallest things. He could feel depressed all day; reflecting on the fact he'd let out this primal side of himself by accident. However, his sadness could wait as he consoled his closest friends, "I guess you had to contend with his behaviour, I'm sorry Toothless… and Stormfly. I should've kept myself under control. Did Shadewrath see me?"

Toothless shook his head, "No, he's unconscious and… different. Don't worry about us, Hiccup. We know you well enough that we wouldn't let you go after you acted strangely."

Hiccup smiled and Toothless came in for an embrace to emphasize his friendship; wrapping his forelegs around Hiccup's hanging chest. Stormfly soon followed; her bipedal stature helping her to hug Hiccup more easily. Toothless gave a quick jerk due to his previous suspicion of her but relaxed and let her continue the embrace.

Eventually the heartfelt moment dissipated for the moment; certain to continue later, but delayed for a short time while they flew off to meet Shadewrath on Edward's ship.

Viggo awoke in the hold.

 **End of chapter.**

 **I'll just insert this "The Room" parody (roof scene); "I love this story, it's beautiful, I love it. A lot… Oh hi Viggo."**

 **I realise the link on my profile to my M-rated story was not working, I've tried to fix it and I'd like to know if it works.**


	12. 12: Viggo's last Hurrah

**NFF-Hiccup's encounter with the god of night.**

 **Fair warning, I have lost the plot; it's been too long since I had a good read of my own stories.**

 **Chapter 12:**

The three arrived at Edward's ship and Hiccup was shocked to see the form of Shadewrath splayed out over the top deck; it was a wonder that Edward could carry such a burden on his ship and still sail.

While Toothless and Stormfly landed, Hiccup went off to perform a complete circle around the unconscious dragon, just to confirm that he actually existed and wasn't a figment of the imagination.

Eventually Hiccup came down to land; bouncing off the deck slightly from his distraction, but ultimately recollecting himself to turn back human and talk to Edward.

"What happened?" Hiccup said, worry heard in his voice as he tried to work out the cause behind Shadewrath's sudden and strange transformation.

Edward shrugged, Toothless and Stormfly gave him looks that suggested they had as little idea as him. Hiccup now had confirmation and he almost left a trace of himself behind as he hurried over to the sleeping Night Fury.

The sudden movement surprised both Edward and the dragons, but they left Hiccup alone while he gave Shadewrath a careful visual check; giving empathic cringes every time he stumbled on a scratch or bruise from the fall.

Toothless and Stormfly watched with silence as Hiccup finished his second, thorough inspection and then ran off to find some pure water to clean the affected areas. Toothless then turned to Stormfly.

" **It seems like he cares a lot about Shadewrath, for some reason I had my doubts, but he wants to make sure that he's okay."** Toothless said calmly, giving Hiccup occasional glances to indicate that he was the subject of his concern.

Hiccup picked up on Toothless' conversation and paused briefly to rebuke it.

"Toothless… he needed help and I gave him help; surely that's totally understandable?" He said, before a distinct possibility came up in his head. "Unless… are you jealous about how much I care for Shadewrath?" Hiccup said with a teasing voice; the possibility of such a thing being true made him feel cheeky.

Toothless struggled to come up with a good explanation for his words, but eventually just gave up.

" **I guess you could say that."** Toothless replied, slightly defeated. Hiccup went off to treat Shadewrath again and Toothless sighed as he realised how bad the thought of jealousy made him feel. Turning back to Stormfly to continue talking, albeit more quietly to avoid Hiccup's notice, Toothless was slightly unimpressed to see that she had defaulted to preening.

However, he still spoke to Stormfly since he didn't want Hiccup to hear what he said; he cared too much about Hiccup to let that happen.

" **I don't know, Stormfly, I really don't; something about Shadewrath's relationship with Hiccup makes me feel like Hiccup will abandon me for him. I mean, how do I even know he still cares about me? Sure I was his 'buddy' when I was the only Night Fury around, but how about now? I also know that, currently, he does care about me, but he's also forming a very close relationship to Shadewrath that could tear him away from me!"** Toothless growled; angry at the very thought that Shadewrath would take away Hiccup.

Stormfly, surprisingly, stopped preening her scales and listened carefully to Toothless' rant; eventually she replied to him when he finished.

" **I think you worry too much; you and Hiccup have a rich history together and your bond to each other reflects that. You may think your relationship is weak, but you've saved him and he's saved you; now you have a strong connection forged by mutual defence. However, I am just guessing; you would have to ask Hiccup for his true feelings; and if, by some freak occurrence, he is starting to like Shadewrath more than you, then it should still be possible to win Hiccup back; Shadewrath may be better in some aspects, but he's no match for you."** Stormfly said resolutely; she honestly believed that Toothless, if he wanted to be friends with Hiccup, would have no trouble doing so.

Toothless found her response extremely comforting, but then his mind raised another troublesome contender; in such a way that it seemed purposeful.

" **What about Astrid? I don't know what to expect from her and Hiccup seems to be paying attention to her, so she's an obvious contender."** Toothless said, with some contempt coming into his voice.

" **Why are you so worked up about this, Toothless? You need to calm down before you get out of control."** Stormfly said; worried and surprised.

By this time Hiccup had washed about half of Shadewrath's visible wounds.

Toothless turned and actually gave Stormfly a warning growl.

" **You would be wise not to underestimate the connection between me and Hiccup. We can** _ **finally**_ **talk and act like normal friends! But** _ **now**_ **there's a chance that Hiccup will completely ignore me forever in favour of some… some other person who** _ **doesn't**_ **deserve such companionship with him. I like you Stormfly, but you should be more careful."** Toothless said in a forceful, angry tone.

Stormfly fell into silence for a while; this side of Toothless was unexpected, even with the depth of his companionship to Hiccup, and made her worry about how he would act in the future. A few minutes later though, she had to know why Toothless would get angry now.

" **Why here? Why now? I've known you for a long time and you've never been this agitated."** Stormfly spoke in a curious manner, her words slightly blunter from the earlier aggression of Toothless.

" **You seem to forget the one instance I would; protecting Hiccup or myself. If the crew of this ship decided to attack me or him, especially him, I would be agitated. Hel, the thought of a possible attack makes me want to slaughter the person steering the ship."** Toothless said, aiming a hateful glance at Edward; who noticed the unwanted attention with nervous worry, before taking his attention back to steering the ship.

Stormfly began to understand with this sentence; obviously Toothless would care about keeping Hiccup safe and, by the tone of his conversation, this was also the reason for him being so worked up about other people having a relationship in any way to Hiccup.

Hiccup was about to come over and work out what Toothless was growling at before something else distracted him.

Shadewrath had been gradually regaining consciousness since his fall and was stirred from his slumber instinctively when he heard Toothless' growling. He took a moment to get his bearings; mostly focused on Hiccup due to his touch and then he became confused at the sudden realisation that Hiccup was tiny compared to him.

" **Hiccup? Why are you so small?"** Shadewrath said, squinting out of necessity to discern just who he was talking to.

Hiccup was still slightly concerned about the cause of the growl, but he saw the awakening of the massive Night Fury as a slightly bigger issue.

"I'm sorry; can't tell you that much because it happened after I was unconscious. Perhaps Toothless could explain it?" He said, before giving Toothless a polite call.

Toothless walked over carefully; paying more, suspicious, attention to Shadewrath than Hiccup. Shadewrath looked to him, expectant for answers and Toothless let him know, but Hiccup could tell Toothless was wary and he wasn't sure why until he began speaking.

" **Something about the shock of** _ **hitting Hiccup**_ **must have caused quite a catastrophic reaction. You're lucky this reaction shows remorse, or you'd be on my kill list for harming Hiccup."** Toothless said menacingly; his distrust of Shadewrath very evident.

Shadewrath was shocked and worried by this; it had been an accident! His subconscious response to move away from the threatening Night Fury almost caused him to knock over one of the masts which barely held. However, even with such accusations pointed his way, Shadewrath couldn't respond for a while; he had no experience with responding peacefully to this, which he had to with Hiccup around, from his time in the wild.

Hiccup was surprised as well; Toothless had seemingly never been this irritated before.

"Toothless, what are you saying? I put myself in the way of that blast; and Shadewrath was only trying to hit the ballistae, not me." Hiccup said resolutely.

Shadewrath was quite surprised to have Hiccup's support; he'd expected that Hiccup would be as quick to blame him as Toothless. His trust and affection for him grew slightly.

Toothless was about to affix Hiccup with a threatening gaze before he realised just what he was doing. His eyes widened quickly with surprise at his own behaviour before trying to apologise.

" **I'm sorry Hiccup, I didn't mean to be annoyed at you. It's just… You've known me for more time than Shadewrath and somehow you seem to like him more than me."** Toothless said, acknowledging that this confession was quite embarrassing to admit.

Hiccup wasn't one to cast unfair punishments and this was no exception. So, while Toothless acted submissive for apology, Hiccup merely came up to him and gave him a large, friendly hug.

Toothless' eyes widened for a moment from the unexpected reaction, but then he calmed down; Hiccup was just showing his affection and that was fine.

Shadewrath huffed at Toothless for his earlier behaviour, a sound magnified by his height, but mostly forgave him as well.

Meanwhile, as the emotional exchange was going on above and friendships were slightly stretched, Viggo was ready to escape; he had already broken the bindings that attached him to the hull since the bonds had been made with western Europe's body shape in mind, not the incredibly strong build of Vikings. Having gotten past his first little obstacle, Viggo scanned the cell with eager eyes; scanning the dark area for anything that might help him escape.

His search was not successful and he cursed at the emptiness of the prison. Instead he decided he would turn the wall into a makeshift ramp and repeatedly punched through the wall until it was weak enough to push out onto the water; using the strength he had earned through many years of dragon trapping.

The sounds of Viggo's cunning escape did not go unnoticed by anyone. As the hardened timbers broke apart, both the English crew and Hiccup's group heard and went into action; the gunners started scanning the waters once they'd reached their cannons as did Edward and Hiccup, Toothless prepared a plasma blast and Shadewrath did so too as his frame stood and caused the boat to rock.

Viggo was momentarily taken off his feet by the unexpected, sudden rolling of the boat, stumbling. But, he was quick to get back onto his feet, aided by the oaken wood below him and jumped wilfully onto the now floating section of broken hull. The makeshift craft wobbled slightly, but Viggo kept it absolutely level on the water; keeping his body weight low until the rolling stopped.

Initially, he planned on just letting both boat's different velocities bring them apart, but Edward had, as everyone else had, been alerted to his presence so, with a quick lean over each side to try and find the source, Edward saw Viggo and rushed to his wheel to put all his effort into rotating the large wheel fast enough for a quick turn onto Viggo before his gunners' fire became too inaccurate.

Viggo was slightly too self-assured of his successful escape; he gave the ship a mocking wave as it left, only to pale slightly as the massive ship started turning hard, exposing what he could only assume were rows upon rows of some kind of weaponry to him.

There was a cacophony of noise as each gunner slewed their cannons onto target and adjusted their elevation. The preparing continued, but each one held their fire as the gunners patiently waited for the signal.

Edward finished the motions of his hard turn and got back to his feet now the vessel had stopped leaning from the manoeuvre that it had just gone through. He had no doubt that his gunners were already pointed at the target and aimed; he knew them well, but he was unsure of the 3 others on deck. He trusted them, but he was also aware they would not follow his orders and so he would admit to feeling slightly worried with the lack of control over this boy and his dragons.

However, he gave only a furtive glance at them before shouting "Fire!" in his practiced, commanding tone. His own gunners went off in sync; filling the air with converging cannonballs that splashed around and went through the enemy vessel.

None actually hit Viggo, since he was able to track their trajectories, but his vessel was thoroughly smashed and soon he was floating by a single piece of buoyant wood.

As Viggo splashed into the water, Toothless and Shadewrath felt it prudent to follow the gunners below them; Toothless fired a plasma blast first, followed by Shadewrath's own.

Both shots were directly onto Viggo and he could do nothing until the first one hit; the explosion ripped the plank from his hands and sent him swimming. But, he wasn't allowed the pleasure of treading water for long until Shadewrath's shot hit the water; it took a while to explode, ploughing through the water, but once it did no one could see Viggo's final fate behind a spray of water.

Hiccup was admittedly appalled by the show of such violence on what basically was an unarmed man; something both Toothless and Shadewrath noticed after a quick check on their friend. Neither of them could come up with a good excuse for themselves so they had to rely on comforting Hiccup.

" **I'm sorry you had to see that Hiccup, but you know Viggo's a bad man. If we let him escape then he would've just kept trying to hurt us or others."** Toothless said in an apologetic tone. Subconsciously, he was angry at Shadewrath for telling Hiccup that Viggo was dead. There was also a part of him that knew Hiccup wouldn't accept the whole 'good and evil' argument, but he had to at least comfort the boy in some way.

Just these subtle feelings gave Toothless a worried outlook which was unusual for him except Hiccup got them both into a bad spot.

His ruse didn't console Hiccup as he went off to vent somewhere else. As soon as he saw this disappointing reaction, Toothless gave a sharp, hushed curse. Shadewrath heard and pivoted his head down to acknowledge Toothless.

" **Toothless, are you okay?"** Shadewrath said.

Toothless was about to let his hatred of Shadewrath from earlier flow again, now that Hiccup was out of the way, but he decided it was pointless.

" **I'm fine, he needs some time to recover."** Toothless said, not revealing the real reason he looked so agitated at the moment.

At the bow of the ship, and with Shadewrath's willingness to ignore him while he calmed down, Hiccup reflected on the dreadful events that had just happened, ' _I can't believe they actually went along with it; all of them. Viggo had absolutely nothing to defend himself and… he's gone now, or so I suspect at least. Does this have any implications for the relationship between me and them? Most definitely, but at the same time I don't want to push it too far; just like Astrid I want them to realise what they've done is bad, but at the same time I don't want to alienate them. Obviously I'm bad at that'_ he thought, gazing across the water to Viggo's ship, ' _I tried it with Astrid and it didn't work; she just ignored the punishment. Will that happen to them?... Maybe.'_ Hiccup accepted, looking to the two dragons behind him as though their sight would indicate their future actions. Finally he let out his anger at indecision with a hard, but cushioned, pummel to the deck. He resolved that a mandated punishment for them would take too much and probably be ineffective. Instead, he would have to try and keep better control of them in the future; not a master/slave one, since Hiccup couldn't bear to think about becoming like _them_ , but rather teaching them gently about how they could act in the future.

Having gotten his immediate concerns out of the way, Hiccup slowly returned to Toothless with the updated course of action in his mind.

Toothless was quite surprised to see him back so soon; normally Hiccup took a bit longer to recover, but he was happy nonetheless.

" **Are you better yet? I hope it wasn't too bad for you,"** Toothless said, purposefully avoiding the previous topic in case it triggered memories.

Hiccup wasn't so sure if he could be so positive at the back of his mind, but he pushed it aside.

"Yeah, I'm fine now. I was just wondering if you could wait, just a little, before firing if it's not urgent?" Hiccup said, fully aware that Toothless could give him a _are you serious_ look and he'd have to retreat.

Toothless did nothing of the sort, nodding slightly as he decided to agree with what Hiccup had said. Then he turned to Shadewrath to ask if he would agree as well; his head craning up to look at the dragon from below,

" **Shadewrath? Would you mind waiting slightly before shots, unless it's a matter of life and death?"** Toothless asked Shadewrath.

Shadewrath thought about it for a while, thinking about any potential difficulties he would run into with this in mind. Finding no serious cases, he defaulted to his wish to help Hiccup in any way he could.

" **I shall, for your sake"** Shadewrath said with a booming voice that shook Hiccup to the core.

Getting over his sudden fear of the looming Night Fury after a while, Hiccup gave a smile to Shadewrath and responded.

"Thank you, it… means a lot for me."

Shadewrath smiled back and Toothless copied the gesture; now they were just 3 very good friends.

Astrid was trying to get used to the vision of Hiccup she now had; the dragon side had been… worrying to deal with and now she wasn't sure if Hiccup would recover. Nevertheless, she acknowledged that if that was still an issue, she would have the determination to get him back to normal. This reassurance, that Hiccup still relied on her, was enough to lift her spirits.

Snotlout wasn't having nearly as much fun as he'd thought he would have when he got Astrid to get on board Hookfang; she was just too engrossed thinking about Hiccup. So, he vented out his frustration with a few wild lashes, one of which catching Hookfang on the jaw, to which he responded with a sour face.

Viggo had defied most expectations as he slowly crawled his way over to the shoreline just in front of him; he'd bested the initial capture, the cannonballs and Toothless' shot. If he could only get on dry land he would have a partial victory.

But a man's determination can only endure so much in front of cold physics; the cannonballs were a fate he had avoided, but the shockwave of Toothless' shot had damaged his organs.

Shadewrath's shot had flung him far into the air _and_ _also_ gave him a shockwave to be worried about; his organs were shutting down, far too damaged to cope and only a desperate plea for survival remained.

One hand reached the shoreline, but then it fell limp and drifted back into the water.

Viggo was dead.

 **A/N:**

 **Well, I guess he's gone. There's a reason that's happened.**

 **I hope you liked it, even if some parts may not fit naturally into the flow of the story. I'll try to read much more of my earlier chapters for the next update to all my stories.**

 **End A/N**


	13. 13: New contender

**NFF- Hiccup's encounter with the god of Night**

 **A/N**

 **I may have lost the plot for the last chapter; you get this chapter as my angry rebuttal at the laziness of my past self.**

 **End A/N**

 **Chapter 13.**

As Hiccup, Toothless and Shadewrath waited in serene silence, letting the world go by as they peered around slowly. Stormfly kept a curious eye at all times and Edward kept his eyes fixed on navigation as he reasoned that the more dramatic times had passed.

Their calm was interrupted by a slowly-collecting black cloud that initially was thrown around, at the whims of the wind, before coming together into the shape of a man or, more accurately, a god.

Toothless was as happy as could be expected at the appearance of the creator of Night Furies; the esteemed being's presence was a blessing by itself. However, his initial excitement departed quickly as soon as he saw the serious look on the God of Night's face.

After Toothless gulped in anxiety for what was coming, the man started speaking.

"Would you care to explain what happened a few minutes ago? Why do you two, such noble beasts of my creation, fall to the sins of murder so quickly?" The God of Night asked, his regal nature keeping him calm even as internally he despised these actions.

Toothless' eyes opened wide in surprise; he'd reckoned that Hiccup would have some misgivings about Shadewrath and him killing an enemy leader, but the God was unexpected and also promised to be a lot less forgiving.

" **My Lord, we were acting on compulsion rather than reason. We are sorry to have disappointed you."** Toothless said lowly, keeping his eyes on the ground in reverence as he asked for forgiveness.

The god, standing still, gave a little nod.

"Of course, I doubt that you would ever fall to this evil willingly. You are right to assume I am disappointed, sadly I have to admit that, but I think you can do much better. To make sure you improve over time, you will be watched over at all times by…" the God of Night spoke, showing understanding, but still the underlying tone of sadness.

Toothless closed his eyes for a short time, praying that whatever consequences of this crime wouldn't be too severe, before raising them as though he would win over the god with his puppy eyes.

"… Hiccup" the God finished, still in the same tone, but Toothless could have sworn that those words had some joy behind them; such was the effect of his worst fears becoming almost void.

Hiccup, Stormfly and Edward all stood in confused silence, each for their own reasons.

Now knowing the God's decision, Toothless was in the mood for some gratitude.

" **Thank you, Night; I am more than happy with this course of action."** Toothless replied with joy; his previous subdued pose disappeared as he lost his previous worries.

Night gave another nod; his authority was slightly tainted with his affection for the Night Furies.

"I would agree with you; I could have been far harsher, but what does that achieve? Most likely my children hate me and the joy of being a creator is lost. Of course, I'll still need some reparations," the God of Night acknowledged, before casting his eyes to Hiccup, "I trust you to let the Dragons learn their lessons; it's up to you to work out what that entails." He stated, still as calm and serene as ever.

Hiccup would've loved to join Toothless and Shadewrath, since he had heard the news, in celebration. But, he was uncertain about what the God of Night would expect of him; he had, after all, put him in charge of two Night Furies, now more than ever. So, instead, he gulped with anxiety in preparation for his uncertain future.

And yet, with all this worry, he still wanted Toothless and Shadewrath to be happy, so he accepted.

"I may not be the best at this task, but I shall do my best, o God of Night." Hiccup announced dutifully.

Night smiled warmly; everything was coming together better than he could've hoped for and he was thankful to Hiccup for his acceptance.

Meanwhile a man was patrolling a pier, surveying each of his ships. The reason for his special attention was simple; each one of them had to be kept in the best of conditions for hunting dragons. This was of particular concern since Viggo didn't seem to be bringing home his fair share.

He supposed this may have been due to a random shortfall in the population around the island Viggo worked around, but his contemplation was interrupted by a messenger,

"Drago, Sir! Viggo has been found dead. His body seems to show signs of burning and water damage. The burning damage is worrying; Viggo knows how to avoid dragon fire, something must have taken him-" The messenger rattled off, before being interrupted by Drago.

"Stop your rambling! I came here to inspect ships, not listen to a man speak in gibberish!" Drago shouted with clear impatience.

There were a few moments of silence as the messenger adjusted to these new parameters. "Viggo's dead, probably caused by dragons." The thin man said.

Drago was quite surprised and shocked, but it was a very brief surge of emotion before he grew an irritated face again. Obviously, to his perception, Viggo must have gotten too confident, went for too many risks and a lucky dragon must've killed him.

"Well, this is inconvenient, but surely this is rather inconsequential." Drago said, using his leadership to try and make this man feel weak for this 'useless' piece of news.

No such thing came from the messenger; he was used to dealing with such attitudes.

"I would have to disagree; we found some kind of chemical in his waterlogged clothes; something that burnt yellow when we exposed it to the air and didn't have an odour." The messenger responded, gaze hard and unmoved by the Viking in front of him.

Drago had to laugh; this messenger really thought this would somehow be more impressive?

"I don't know how you think that's supposed to concern me; some chemical acts a certain way, so what?" Drago said, internally hysterical at the hopeless show of defiance of this messenger.

The messenger in question hadn't revealed his best piece of information; he gave a small smile in the corner of his lips as he gave the ultimate deal breaker for the dragon hunter leader in front of him.

"There's only one chemical we know of that behaves like that." he said gleefully.

Drago was about to silence him completely, like the mindless, rambling buffoon that he thought this messenger was, but the messenger kept going with determination.

"Acetylene, and the only dragon that we know of that uses that is…" he continued.

Drago was in the uncomfortable position of silence; normally he dealt with smart-alecs like this by sending them away, but the conversation had _just gotten interesting._

"… the Night Fury." The messenger finished, letting his smile infect the rest of his mouth

Drago finally responded positively; getting a delicious sense of ancient fear as his hand found his weapon and his blood pumped a little more forcefully through his veins. He closed his eyes to relish in this feeling for a moment, before looking at the messenger again with a malicious grin.

"Now you're talking. A Night Fury will most definitely be a worthwhile prize; prepare the fast ships and get ready to sail to Viggo's island." Drago said as a response/order for the messenger.

The island of Berk was in sight for the people and dragons on board Edward's ship. Many crewmembers, still on high alert after Viggo's escape and interception, finally took their chance to rest as they now regarded themselves to be in safer waters.

After giving his advice, the god of night dispersed in a similar way to how he'd first appeared.

Without the presence of Night, Toothless and Shadewrath felt liberated to show Hiccup their gratitude for his accepted responsibility; Toothless wanted to go first, but a lick interrupted him.

From someone so large as Shadewrath, the tongue practically engulfed Hiccup and left him as a drool-covered, bewildered body and he became a source of humour for everyone on deck to see.

After a short period of shock, Hiccup sighed with resignation, "I thought this kind of thing was behind me. Obviously not." He muttered, shaking the saliva off his hand.

Slowly the laughing died down to a giggle, then it faded gently into the background. When Toothless recovered from his personal moment of mirth, he started talking to Hiccup.

" **You've taken a lot of responsibility for us, thank you for your generosity, it means a lot to me."** Toothless declared, every bit as thankful as his words suggested.

Hiccup gave a smile as an answer; it was heartening for his friend to show respect, especially after he had felt some indecision beforehand.

"So, what now?" Hiccup said, wondering what the others would say; he wanted them to say that it was over, that there weren't any more obstacles to peaceful coexistence.

It was optimistic.

" **Try to stop the Dragon hunters; Viggo most definitely isn't the last one."** Shadewrath replied. Hiccup was surprised that the 'wild' Night Fury knew something; he had lulled himself to believe that Shadewrath actually knew things, a belief he was quick to remove with respect for him.

"Thanks, that will be our next target." Edward declared, confusing Hiccup some more.

"Edward, already? I was thinking we may need to rest first." Hiccup asked curiously; he hadn't expected this direct response to his question.

"I guess you can, we'll patrol the waters and look for and deal with other dragon hunters." Edward stated bluntly.

Hiccup was slightly worried about what Edward would do with any dragon hunters they found, so he decided to query him for this.

"So, what are you going to do when you find something? You don't seem to have the equipment suitable for well… peaceful takeover, sorry to say," Hiccup said, getting nods from Stormfly, Toothless and Shadewrath in agreement.

"We can take over a ship without violence, don't worry about that; we may have a lot of cannons on board, but my men are perfectly capable of subduing any of the Dragon hunter's men." Edward said, belief of success heavily present in his tone.

Hiccup relented, for now, pursuing Edward's actions. Instead, he turned to the dragons and told them something they would be pretty happy to hear, especially now that the sun was falling below the horizon.

"I think we're done here. If you want we can fly home?" Hiccup asked the others, who quickly gave their replies of agreeance.

Toothless took the opportunity, of the short time before flying, to inform Hiccup on behalf of both him and Shadewrath.

" **Hiccup, later on I'd like to speak to you, perhaps with Shadewrath as well…"** He started, with a slight residual tone of anger present in his voice about referencing Shadewrath.

"… **if he wants to, I guess, he doesn't have to. But I think that we need some more time to thank you and perhaps talk about the future?"** He finished, with a suspicious gaze towards Shadewrath.

"Sure, I don't think I'd ever turn you down; you've been my friend for a very long time. I'd be happy to talk to you both in private." Hiccup replied, unsure why Toothless was acting so strange around Shadewrath.

A boy sat down watching the fleet go past his small island; the sides were weird, covered in metal things and he had never seen the entire thing. His curiosity paused for a moment as he felt the glancing effect of what his mind somehow identified as the God of Night.

After this revelation, it didn't take long for him to seek out his friend; a black subspecies of Night Fury with white parts around his eyes and chest to tell him.

"Puffin!" he shouted, to get the Fury's attention.

The dragon in question roused from his sleep, turning his armoured head towards the boy.

" **What is it, Arrow?"** He said in curiosity; the excited nature of the boy made him wonder just what was going on.

"I… I felt something… can't explain how, but I think it came from the 'God of Night'" He said, hoping he wouldn't be wasting the Fury's time.

To his encouragement, the Fury perked up quite significantly.

" **Night? Really? Where?"** Puffin said with astonishment.

Arrow quickly gestured for him to follow and Puffin chased him with anticipation for what he found.

He arrived to see the last of the ships passing by. Arrow helped explain what had happened.

"One of those ships, I felt something coming from it." he said, regretting his lack of his specifics while he struggled to make sense of it for himself.

Puffin nodded and gave the parting ships an intrigued gaze.

Hiccup was left without much to do on board Edward's ship. He knew, at least, that they weren't going to stay on this ship while Edward went on, but now? He wasn't so sure.

"Toothless, Shadewrath? Do you want to stay here? or-"

" **Let's go,"** they both said in unison, before Toothless continued.

" **I don't know about Shadewrath; he's a mystery to me right now, but I want to get back up in the air; ships aren't that exciting."** Toothless said, appealing to Hiccup to accompany them.

"Sure thing." Hiccup replied, he didn't even need the encouragement; he would follow Toothless and Shadewrath as easily as they followed him.

" **Well then, what's there to wait for? I'll see you in the skies!"** Toothless announced, launching himself with passion straight up into the air.

Shadewrath seemed to hesitate for a long period. Concerned, Hiccup decided to be a bit more vocal about his previous suspicion.

"Shadewrath? Is something wrong?" Hiccup asked with a worried face and careful tone.

Shadewrath gave a quick, curt nod.

" **It's… embarrassing to admit, but currently me and Toothless aren't on the best of terms."** Shadewrath admitted.

Hiccup gave a sympathetic "oh…" as he realised why Shadewrath had been acting so strangely. "What happened?" Hiccup asked. He hoped to find out and fix whatever was going on between them; Hiccup wouldn't allow his two dear friends to be enemies.

Shadewrath sighed in his low, amplified voice. **"It would seem as though I'm a stranger to him, one that he might dislike as well. I suspect this might be one of the reasons that he's so jealous. I can't blame him on the second part, though, I guess I would also be pretty annoyed if someone tried to take away my friend."**

"Oh." Hiccup said, hanging his head and feeling a pang of guilt that _he_ was the source of his friend's problem. "I thought you'd known each other for long enough. Well, I guess I can only say it's lucky we're talking later. For now, just remember I love having both of you as friends and I'll cherish you both for as long as I live, even if, and this is an if, I find a 'normal' friend. Maybe Astrid, but I suspect she still isn't _that_ fond of me. I'm sure we can work this out." Hiccup said, going off on a personal emotional tangent, but still his message to Shadewrath was clear.

" **Thank you, Hiccup."**

"Don't worry about it, I want you both to be happy. Anyway, we should join Toothless; he might be wondering why we're taking so long to join him."

Shadewrath agreed rapidly and he took off immediately to go to Toothless. Hiccup took a while to shapeshift, an action he had gotten quite used to by now, and flew after him.

Stormfly and Edward were the only ones left on deck and, for a moment, they gave each other looks, thinking that perhaps they would somehow manage to talk together like Hiccup and Shadewrath before Stormfly shook her head from that stupid notion and flew off to join Hiccup.

Snotlout had flown back to his house by this time, not even lying to himself about how this might just be another attempt to woo Astrid. Annoyingly for him, Astrid seemed to still have her previous thoughts about Hiccup as she jumped off Hookfang and looked towards the skies.

"Seriously, can you stop thinking about Hiccup for _one second,_ Astrid? Surely he'd drugged you or something; like, why do you even care about him? He's just a runt who can get scales and has two dragon friends who are the only reason he isn't already dead! Obviously I'm _way_ better than him." Snotlout said, with slight disappointment in his tone at the strange behaviour of Astrid.

Astrid fixed him with one of her death stares, slightly weakened by his surprising logic, but then lost it as she tried to come up with good reasoning.

"I… It's just… he's friendly, understanding, and interesting… when he's not affected by that… I don't know how to say it, mental disorder?"

"So, you like someone who has multiple personalities, one of which is a _dragon_ apparently, and you still feel that's alright?"

Astrid was resilient and her gaze hardened again.

"Hiccup may be going through something odd at the moment, but that isn't a reason why I can't like him. He's got values."

"Look at you, you're in love with him already" Snotlout jabbed.

As he should have expected, he got a well-deserved punch to the jaw before Astrid walked off, wanting to be away from his childish display.

Hiccup eventually caught up with Shadewrath and Toothless. As he settled into a steady flight between them, Toothless gave him a cheeky smile.

" **Well, look what slow-terror finally decided to show up?"** Toothless joked.

Hiccup, who hadn't seen this kind of thing from Toothless for a long time, was lost for words, earning him a round of laughter from Shadewrath and Toothless at his expense.

Collecting himself, Hiccup was in disbelief.

" **What do you mean? I didn't expect you to be the jokester."**

Toothless face calmed into a content smile.

" **I figure you need the humour, so much time spent fighting and being serious. I'm tired of it and I reckon you are too."**

Hiccup nodded, thoughtfully; Toothless was right, he hadn't heard anything remotely humorous since one of the times he met Gobber.

" **You're too right, haven't heard something try and succeed to be comedic since Gobber."**

" **Not the twins?"** Toothless asked, aware of their trickster nature.

Hiccup laughed, **"I said try and succeed to be comedic, the twins are just like that normally."**

Toothless gave a quiet **"Ah"** before retiring temporarily into a smiling silence.

Shadewrath had been quietly listening the whole time, taking notes about how Toothless acted with Hiccup after having the slight suspicion that maybe it was the way he acted that got Toothless wary. When their conversation faded he began to take notice of the area they were flying over.

" **Hey Hiccup. What do you feel about flying as a Night Fury?"**

Hiccup snapped out of his flying trance to turn to Shadewrath, wings fluttering slightly as he balanced against the sudden change in air flow.

" **Ah, well how do I put this? It's magical, simply magical first off; to take the skies is something else, something I couldn't have foreseen in all my dreams and it's… even better than I possibly could've thought."** Hiccup said, elation clearly seen on his face.

Both Toothless and Shadewrath were happy to hear this; they had similar thoughts about flying themselves.

" **But it's not all fun. I've lived as a human, in a human village, for a long time. A part of me wonders if I'll ever be truly considered human ever again and that's… somewhat depressing when I think about it, sad to say."** Hiccup muttered, guilty that he had to tell such a sombre truth.

Their joy faded slightly, but not much.

" **I'm sure you can get used to it. The village accepts you, you still have a human form… isn't that enough?"** Toothless asked, hoping Hiccup would forget.

" **Not really; you may not see it, but I'm distrusted amongst the villagers. They don't trust me, both because they know what I really am and… because I'm not fully human; it's better than being dead, but it's easy to mark me out as different when I have darker skin, some scales and even Loki-damned dragon** _ **eyes**_ **when I'm in 'human' form. Pretty hard to miss."**

Toothless scowled and Shadewrath gave a curse towards humanity. But, Toothless was used to getting what he wanted; who could resist a threat from a Night Fury?

" **Then they should stop being so rude at your handsome parts! They may be the most stubborn humans I've ever seen, but I'm no stupid pet, like they seem to think; I can scare the fear of Night into them until they listen, easily!"**

Hiccup was encouraged by Toothless' assurance, allowing himself to laugh, and Shadewrath did similar.

" **Well, that might work. I don't think there's anyone, even Stoic, that could say no. Just try not to get into too much trouble; I don't think dad would like it too much if you roughed up the villagers."** Hiccup replied.

Drago had finished adding a significant number of dragon traps. He considered taking his Bewilderbeast, but reasoned that it wouldn't really help; the Bewilderbeast would be hard to keep track of on the move and it would take a while for him to start exerting alpha control over the Night Furies, during which time they could escape.

The outline of Berk marked the start of the Night Fury's landing run. They glided gently down into the centre of the village; an act that didn't faze them that much after Toothless' defiant words.

A couple of villagers gave them suspicious looks, especially at the size of one of the members of their party, but they got an angry gaze of equal intensity from Toothless and Shadewrath. Surprised, they left them alone for a while.

Seeing the villagers unwilling to mess around with them made the Night Furies _escorting_ Hiccup, since that's how they saw themselves now, very happy.

" **It looks like they learnt their lesson, that should go towards paying you back for you helping us."** Shadewrath said, earning some respect from Toothless for his clarity on Hiccup helping them as well.

Wondering what he would do, now that they were in his village and there wasn't any specific tasks he was entitled to complete, Hiccup pondered for a while before coming up with a solution.

' _I think Toothless and Shadewrath wouldn't mind a clean/massage, they've earned it a thousand times over. Then I could go to Gobber and see if he's working on anything interesting.'_

Stormfly touched down behind them, prompting Hiccup to add another thing to his list.

' _Might want to care for Stormfly as well, can't remember the last time Astrid said she'd cleaned Stormfly.'_

He waited for Stormfly to come up, for convenience, before telling them his plans.

"So… would you guys like a wash?" Hiccup said, slightly uncomfortable asking, especially to expect to give such a thing to Shadewrath.

To his relief, the resounding answer was **"Yes!"** so he went to the nearest cleaning area and got ready to rinse, lather, and scrub the dragons; getting the equipment and turning back into his human form.

Shadewrath was first, curious of the way humans might actually wash. He was fortunate, although he had to wait a while, that Hiccup set up and lit a fire under the water storage to warm it up; such a gesture was not shown by the villagers to any other dragons, a fact that saddened Hiccup, especially since he'd designed these spots with an alcove specifically placed for fires.

Eventually, after a short time of waiting and Hiccup venting oxygen onto the fire to help it burn hotter, the water was warm enough to comfortably wash a dragon; a fact that Shadewrath learnt pretty quickly as the water poured over him.

His initial surprise faded quickly as he felt the joyful sensation of the water warming him to the core. Such a sensation was alien to him after a long time in the wild, but he loved every bit of it.

Then Hiccup contributed his hands, covered in primitive soap, towards cleaning Shadewrath; massaging every inch of skin thoroughly to push out the residue, only easing up slightly around the spot he knew would send Shadewrath to sleep.

Even with Hiccup's care not to activate the hard-wired sleep spot, Shadewrath was still struggling with consciousness; every part of his body felt like it just wanted to sleep, relax in the loving, caring hands of Hiccup, even though their difference in size was astonishing.

Toothless could honestly admit to a twinge of jealousy just watching Shadewrath luxuriate under the caress of Hiccup; it had been a long time, but not through any problem of Hiccup as a person, since Toothless had been cleaned and so he was eagerly awaiting his turn alongside Stormfly, who was feeling some interest herself at the same time.

Hiccup had finished going around the head, so he started going down the neck, enjoying the current bliss of the dragon underneath him. He went along the top first and was quite surprised, stopping, when he pressed in a spot and Shadewrath's spine opened up into two.

After a quick check on Shadewrath to confirm he wasn't in pain, in case this wasn't supposed to happen naturally, Hiccup was left in awe, still massaging, at the secret he had just found. Toothless answered his own curiosity as he came up to Shadewrath, jumped on carefully and ran his paw along the valley between the spines.

After his examination, he caught the attention of Hiccup and motioned to his own neck. Hiccup understood pretty quickly; carefully and expertly diverting one hand to apply that same motion to Toothless while still being careful not to interrupt Shadewrath's current massage too much, since he now took personal responsibility for the smile stuck on Shadewrath's face.

A similar thing could be seen with Toothless as his spines split up in response to Hiccup's touch. Toothless was astonished at this secret that had literally hid under his skin.

" **Hiccup, are you seeing this? Can you even believe this?"** Toothless said, with excitement.

Hiccup nodded and grinned, even though his eyes were still glued to Shadewrath to continue the cleaning/massage.

" **I mean, imagine me in the sky with this! I was already good, but this could make me even better! I can already see an improvement to my combat turn."** Toothless imagined, making Hiccup's smile expand right until the moment he said "combat".

It may have been a while, but as he kept pouring the warm water over Shadewrath's large neck, Hiccup could feel shivers through his spine as he recalled his revulsion, his horror at what they had done.

" _I thought you said you forgive them, Hiccup."_ Night said.

At this, Hiccup momentarily introduced his own face to the cleaning effort, before pulling back up. By this point, Toothless and Stormfly could sense something was wrong.

" **Hiccup, are you okay?"** Toothless asked.

Hiccup waved him down, trying to get them to forget about it; he wanted it to be a personal matter that Toothless, Stormfly and Shadewrath would never have to know about; his burden to bear.

Toothless sensed that it was a personal matter and declined to ask more; jumping off Shadewrath's back and resigning himself to watching, as well as messing around a bit with his splitting spines.

Saying that turning down Toothless was painful to Hiccup would be an understatement; his only solace was that it would probably be worse if he just said the truth; such a thing would be soul-destroying for Toothless, if he still believed that Hiccup harboured a grudge.

In fact, if it really did help no one, Hiccup would willingly forget it ever happened; instead he would just go on with his promised goal of making sure it didn't happen again.

"I'm just dealing with some personal things at the moment. By the way, Shadewrath, do you like what I'm doing right now?"

Shadewrath's purr was all he needed to answer his latter question, but Toothless was roused by his mention of 'personal'.

" **Hiccup, you don't have to keep things personal; I'm here for you whenever you want to ask. We are friends, right?"** Toothless wondered.

Hiccup was stumped for a while, slowly finishing off the top of Shadewrath's body. Eventually came for a solution, presenting it after telling Shadewrath to lie down and roll over to give his underside the attention.

"Of course, we're still friends, Toothless! The reason I'm keeping this to myself is for your benefit; I would definitely talk otherwise." Hiccup responded honestly, hoping he would understand.

Toothless nodded in acknowledgement, his fear about being estranged from Hiccup was proved false. He was still curious, understandably, since after a person knows about a secret they will most certainly pursue it.

" **I understand, Hiccup, thank you for the confirmation and I'm sorry I had to ask."** Toothless said, guiltily.

Hiccup shook his head, refusing that Toothless would have to feel bad for his personal troubles.

"It's fine Toothless, what kind of useless friend would I be if I can't tolerate you asking a simple question?" Hiccup replied, purposefully belittling himself to shift Toothless' attention away from self guilt.

Shadewrath had heard parts of the conversation, but he was in bliss and didn't want to be interrupted by what sounded like bad news.

Stormfly watched with intrigue, both listening to the interesting conversation between Hiccup and Toothless as well as keeping an eye on the masterful attention Hiccup was giving to Shadewrath.

Astrid had caught sight of the trio of returning Night Furies, not that it was hard to do so, and made her way over the place where they had landed.

Toothless finally calmed down, forgetting his earlier confusion. While still waiting for Hiccup to finish washing (he was currently doing the underside of Shadewrath's wings), Toothless thought it would be nice to give a kind gesture.

He came up beside Hiccup and pushed his snout into his side; an act that used to and still did give Hiccup glee. While his head was still giving Hiccup a friendly nudge, Toothless talked again.

" **Hiccup, you know that I want to be friends forever with you, right? I hope I haven't said anything to put that in jeopardy."**

"Of course, I mean you didn't declare it before, but if that's what you want then I'm perfectly happy to call you my friend forever." Hiccup replied happily, pretty certain things couldn't go better than having your best bud admit to such a binding affection. Shadewrath, still in pleasure, and Stormfly both seconded Toothless' admission and Hiccup was more than happy to accept their admissions as well.

' _Okay, well now I don't think it could get better.'_

' _I wouldn't say that; you still have enemies, the world isn't peaceful yet.'_ Night advised.

' _Well, could you just give me this moment? I'll deal with them later, with my_ friends _'_ Hiccup said, kinda wishing Night didn't have to interrupt. Still, the advice was useful.

' _Sure, it's not like I want you to feel bad.'_ Night amended.

With that out of the way, Hiccup resigned himself to the moment; Shadewrath was already gleaming like a black diamond, Toothless and Stormfly would be next and he was also content in the knowledge that they liked him and he liked them a lot.

' _But surely that's not normal, get a human friend like- oh shut up Hiccup!'_ he reprimanded himself.

At that moment, Astrid came in, following the sound of their mixed-language conversation. She was about three steps in when she realised what Hiccup was doing.

"Hiccup, is that… are you actually using the cleaning equipment?" Astrid asked, honestly confused why he would be using it right now.

Hiccup shrugged, "I've wanted to use it for a long time, just been too busy with other things" He said, finishing off the underside of Shadewrath's other wing, moving on to the belly and secondary wings.

Astrid nodded thoughtfully; it made sense that Hiccup would care about his dragons more than the others would.

"And do you remember me earlier? You were in some kind of personality problem; I talked to a hateful dragon in your body, it seemed like."

Hiccup was about to respond when his dragon psyche came to the foreground.

"You are not welcome to insult me in my presence, foolish warrior." Dragon-Hiccup said, before Hiccup's normal self came back.

"Sorry. No, I don't remember you; I just remember something happening and then nothing. I also just noticed something; I had a moment of blackness, did he come back?"

Astrid nodded and Hiccup could only sigh.

"Well, you'll have to bear with me; I need to finish cleaning Shadewrath first, but I don't like having this strange presence in my head, I'll try to get rid of it, if I can." Hiccup said, not used to the idea of having multiple consciousness, but he wanted to get rid of this annoying consciousness.

Astrid gave a third nod; hopefully Hiccup could stop being affected before it was too late.

She wasn't aware of the sudden mental shift as Hiccup finally confronted his dragon-like self; he still kept washing as his body went into autopilot. Inside his mind though, Hiccup finally got to speak to the annoying version of his consciousness. He expected that it would be angry, but instead the first words he got were of apology.

"Sorry, Hiccup, I can see that my involvement has brought you only misery. I sought to help you survive and gain status but, by my honour, I shall be at your command." His psyche admonished. Hiccup took a while to take in his new location, his dark mindscape, and dragon-Hiccup's words.

What surprised him, though, was that he didn't feel like this was something he had to get rid of; this personality, although initially detestable, seemed to be capable of being helpful. Thus he made his decision.

"You are forgiven. As long as you don't mess with my friends, then I would love to have you as a … mental friend. Gods… am I going crazy here?" Hiccup said, his initial calm diminished by the realisation that he was talking inside his own mind.

The alter-ego of Hiccup… smiled? It was hard to tell with the way he did it on his Night Fury face.

"I am eternally grateful for this favour Hiccup. I shall endeavour to aid you in the future." Dragon-Hiccup said, respectfully. He wasn't done speaking, though.

"Before I leave you, for now, I would like to warn you about the other personality that inhabits your mind; he may be more human than me, but his arrogance is… irritating. Anyway, goodbye for now." He said, before letting Hiccup regain consciousness.

He found himself finishing off the last of Shadewrath's tail. His confusion at the missing memory of the time that had passed was only increased when Astrid's voice came through.

"Hiccup? I don't want to interrupt you while you work, and I appreciate that you're doing a good job, but can we speak?"

Hiccup turned to her, lacking the words to speak for a moment.

"Sure… Sure. What do you want to say?"

"Do you know that I like you?"

 **End of chapter**

 **5900+ words! By the end of the A/N it might be over 6000.**

 **Done during a long journey; please be aware that the style of writing may change dramatically throughout this piece; either due to tiredness or lack of social contact.**

 **I may have mentioned this somewhere else, but I've developed a short plan for Hiccup gone half fury; it isn't comprehensive, but it's a start.**


	14. 14: Massage, and shy Hiccup

**NFF-Hiccup's encounter with the god of night.**

 **Chapter 14**

By the time Hiccup is finished with him, Shadewrath is just sleeping contentedly; covered by the tranquil blanket of rest and dreams. Since he's too big to move, Hiccup just moves on to Toothless, who sits contentedly as he waits. The first touch he gives lulls him into a calm state.

This action took up about half of Hiccup's current thinking, the other was solely focused on understanding exactly what to respond to Astrid's confession. His mind went in different directions, turning through all possibilities; during which time his dragon alter-ego made itself known. _'You could just burn her, it'd save you the bother of this thinking business.'_ It suggested, too casually spoken to convey the horrific nature of that thought.

Such a suggestion was enough to bring Hiccup out of his confused state; yes he was shy, but this was love, not a battlefield.

"Hiccup? Are you in there?" Astrid asked, coming obnoxiously close.

He opened his mouth to speak, turning to meet her eyes, but once he met her features with his gaze he couldn't say anything, to entranced by the combination of such a pretty girl and one that had just admitted she liked him.

Okay, so perhaps love was a little bit of a battlefield; shields up, swords out and try to survive the encounter.

"Uh… no, no I didn't." Hiccup said meekly, although, inside of his mind, he was celebrating first contact, first victory.

"Well you know now." Astrid stated, unaware of his little mental conflict.

"Yes, yes I do." Hiccup said, just agreeing with her as he _slowly_ returned his thoughts to cleaning Toothless.

"Too embarrassed?" Astrid continued, pushing the matter.

That was enough to stop Hiccup dead in his tracks, to the slight annoyance of Toothless below. **"If Astrid stops Hiccup doing this, I swear to god I'll kill her."** He said under his breath.

" **Shush."** Hiccup whisper-shouts covertly. It wouldn't be very good if he actually went through with that threat. **"I've still got my hands on you, needy reptile."** He reminds him, still trying to keep it inconspicuous.

"Hiccup?" Astrid asked, following up her previous question.

"Yes, yes. I'll admit it, I'm embarrassed." Hiccup confesses quickly, feeling required to do that to prevent further issues.

" **You shouldn't be, you're a handsome devil."** Toothless says casually, with his eyes closed under the hypnotising effects of Hiccup's massage.

Such a statement was enough to break Hiccup momentarily. "WHAT?!" He exclaims, causing Astrid to jump and Toothless to let out a slow round of laughs, gradually building in intensity.

"Hiccup, what was that about?" Astrid questioned, on edge from his outburst.

"Uh, just something shocking I just realised." He said in a forcefully-calm tone, half-lying, to her. **"Are you being serious?"** Hiccup whispered to Toothless, being glad that his massage/clean gave him the excuse to turn away for this exact purpose.

Toothless laughs a bit more. **"Yep."** He says, still unconcerned, causing Hiccup to blush madly again.

" **Toothless!"** He whisper-shouts again, before putting it to one side to keep his composure. **"We can talk about it later, not now."** He says firmly.

Toothless can't stop himself for a while, just giggling at his tease, eventually calming down to a light chuckle and then silence; just enjoying Hiccup pushing his bunched muscles around, letting them uncoil and recover; a pleasurable feeling on Toothless's end.

"You don't seem to be telling the truth." Astrid complained, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Well… I don't know how to tell the truth; It sounds like a fantasy to _me_ and I'm living it!" Hiccup explained honestly, but it only added to Astrid's confusion and suspicion.

"Really, you know something, but you can't explain it?" Astrid said, although the apparent curiosity was rendered null by her tired look; annoyed that Hiccup was being so slow.

Hiccup felt he had no choice but to tell the truth; not only was he already in big trouble with her for his delay, but she was also kind of hot… and that wrecked his resistance.

"Fine, the thing is that I can talk to dragons… to put it very simply." Hiccup said.

Astrid's eyes widened slightly at the surprising information; she didn't expect something _that_ outlandish, then they relaxed as her face adopted a steely look that she reserved for people she didn't quite trust.

Here Hiccup started to feel like he'd royally screwed up, Astrid's eyes seemingly blazing into his back, speeding up his hands; so he'd at least have done most of Toothless before she chased him with an axe.

Finally, she finished her moment of hard contemplation. "Alright, fine. You kind of surprised me with that, but why should I care that you can talk to dragons? Just an extra skill, really..." Astrid said, in a tone so casual that it made Hiccup worried.

"…Unless you talk about me behind my back. Then I'll have a problem with it." Astrid threatened, making Hiccup wince in anticipation of an 'aid' to remember that statement.

Thankfully, it never came; instead Astrid actually offered some positive news. " _Only_ if you do that. Otherwise, would you like to be my boyfriend for the time being?" Astrid offered.

Now Hiccup was almost sure she was messing with him. "Are you serious?" He says, strongly disbelieving.

Astrid smiles, somewhat pleased that she was able to evoke such a reaction.

"Well, think about your competition; Snotlout's way too arrogant for his own good; Fishlegs is nice, but way too geeky and with a poor sense of what is an 'acceptable' way to eat. Tuffnut is… well you already know, so that leaves you." Astrid outlined.

Her description of the others seeming to calm her down, so she wasn't as suspicious anymore, which Hiccup was glad for; any de-escalation of tensions was fine by him, especially when it meant less tensions between him and, what could be, his girlfriend.

Hiccup was honestly stunned, absent-mindedly still cleaning Toothless while he tried to process what he'd just heard; happy, but with the incredible suspicion that he'd tripped and fell into dream world at some point just now. "Uh… well … Okay then! I just really didn't think you'd go for a runt for myself."

"…but I did." Astrid stated blandly, feeling like she could get him to accept where it was, making herself sound as though it was already extremely obvious.

"And… and socially awkward." Hiccup said, trying to purge her mind of any misrepresentations of him she may have because, in his mind, he _wasn't_ good at anything at all!

"That is something I can work with. At least you aren't rude." Astrid said. "Apart from not answering my questions sooner, although I _assume you'll improve on that?"_ She continued, with the latter part in a tone that said he _would_ learn how to do that.

"Yes, yes sure." Hiccup replied, instinctively not wanting to encourage her wrath.

"Good then. I assume that means that you'll clean my dragon." Astrid commented, getting him comfortable by telling him to do something he would do anyway.

Stormfly grumbled. "She didn't like that." Hiccup stated. To his surprise, Astrid just smiled as though it was an inside joke.

"Good to hear, we seem to share the same personality." Astrid stated calmly, reaching for her axe.

Her action confused Hiccup. "Why are you doing th-" He started.

He was cut off when she fully withdrew it from the sheath and used it to block a vicious tail swipe from Stormfly; sending her skidding back but without injury.

"Like I said, same personality; I wouldn't like it either if someone said I belonged to someone else, nor if they assumed they were equal to me." She stated, impressing Hiccup with her predictive power. A certain part of her smiled when she saw that; for some reason she enjoyed his awe.

Stormfly wanted to give her another strike for that, but resolved that it would just lend credence to her argument, so she just grumbled as she walked away.

By this time, Toothless's body had been done ; scales clean and vivid, but not shiny; they were stealth creatures after all. He stands up, shaking himself clean of any leftover water on his body and then giving Hiccup an appreciative lick before lying down next to Shadewrath and going to sleep.

Hiccup almost forgot that his hands had been still tending to Toothless, so he jumped when Toothless started to move. However, he recovered quickly and took the lick with mixed feelings, before returning his attention to Astrid.

"You've convinced me that you two are very similar, although for the sake of neutrality I'm not going to tell Stormfly that." Hiccup whispered quietly to her. Fortunately, Stormfly didn't hear, but she did come over to get her own wash; somewhat heartened by what she'd seen happen to Toothless and Shadewrath.

Hiccup's hands went back into autopilot as soon as Stormfly's scales were in reach; scraping away the dirt and grime that clung to her shiny scales.

"Is this relationship just going to be about me taking care of Stormfly? It's not that I mind, she is a beautiful dragon, but is that it?" Hiccup asked, still unsure just how far this would go. Stormfly cooed in delight at the comment.

"If you impress me, we can go to marriage." Astrid stated bluntly, enjoying the reactions she got from these kinds of statements.

Again, Hiccup was surprised. "Marriage, really?"

"Like I said, your competition isn't very good." Astrid said, still to the point.

"But… but forget about them, you're a badass warrior maiden! You don't need to get involved with someone like me at all." Hiccup said, still working on making sure he didn't disappoint.

"I am, yes, and I'd like you to refer to me as such. But you're the one that I'd like; you don't seem to notice it, but you have a lot of good qualities; humility, determination, kindness to name a few." Astrid replied. "Also, I feel like it would be nice for someone to call me 'badass' whenever I like who _isn't_ just trying to say that to get my clothes off." Astrid continued.

"I… I need time to think." Hiccup said, stunned beyond words; inside his other two psyches were celebrating the success but he told them in quite a stern mental that it wasn't the time to be partying. Reluctantly, they calmed down.

"You can do just that, I'll help you on Stormfly." Astrid said, joining him on the other side of Stormfly, contributing her hands to the cleaning effort; sending Stormfly into a deeper state of bliss, even if she was annoyed that it was the girl who'd messed with her earlier.

Hiccup shyly thanks her for helping him, although still embarrassed that _he_ 'd be the object of her affections.

* * *

Elsewhere, two fishermen were slowly moving through the water.

They weren't special, one of about 100 deployed to keep the island of Berk supplied with fish for both the people and the dragons; their action was important to the health and freedom of both species, but they rarely received any gratification for it, save from Stoick and Hiccup who congratulated them whenever they met.

Their names were Gulti and Bandli, where Gulti was the main fisherman on board, dealing with the catch and storage; while Bandli was the ship's captain, trying to find where the next catch-place would be and manoeuvring accordingly.

However, they would find an interesting sight which would convert their roles. "Bandli, is that… a dragon hunter ship?" Gulti asked, peering into the deeper waters away from Berk to a suspicious-looking vessel.

Bandli joined him on deck, putting a spyglass up to his eyes to get a better view. Eventually he dropped it down, astonished. "That's a dragon-hunter scout ship, for sure; She's got two main ballistae on board." He commented, worried.

Gulti was somewhat hopeful. "It's a scouting ship though, right? It'll just sail right past; we don't have any dragons in the air that we need to worry about." He suggested.

Bandli shook his head grimly. "She's four-anchored. Apparently they have some business here."

Gulti gulped, but still was somewhat optimistic. "Perhaps we could just sail over, tell them they're in our waters?" He asked

Bandli just shook his head again. "We don't mess with them as fishermen; those ballistae will kill us just as easily as it would a dragon, and they like to take our boats; rig 'em up to be more dragon-hunters to join their ranks. So we do what we traditionally do when we see a dragon-hunter; leave it the Helheim alone, travel back and get a warship involved." Bandli stated, going towards the helm to steer them away.

* * *

With both of them working on Stormfly, it was quick work; soon her entire body was clean, shining unlike the matte scales of the Night Furies. There was some clear pride of Stormfly as she stood up from the cleaning; inspecting her new body and cawing happily at how nice it looked now.

Once done looking at herself, she talked to Hiccup. "Thank you so much! I look like myself again." She said, posing slightly to emphasise it. _'well, perhaps she's a bit more obsessed with looks than Astrid'_ He thought, only to turn and see Astrid polishing her axe to a gleam. _'Okay, maybe not. Looks like they are_ _ **very**_ _similar_ ' He amended.

His calm observations were interrupted when the sound of frantically-flapping wings could be heard. Looking up, Hiccup could see his father and Gobber racing off towards the ocean.

"They look like they're in a hurry, perhaps there's been an incident." Astrid said.

"Perhaps." Hiccup agreed. "But I'm sure they can handle it well enough." He commented.

Astrid shrugged. "I would say if they had my parents with them, they'd be absolutely fine." She replied.

"Alright, alright, so they don't have your parents, but they should still be fine." Hiccup compromised.

"Should be." Astrid confirmed.

* * *

Gobber and Stoick circled carefully around the ship they'd been warned about by the fishermen; from above they could see this was indeed a scout-class dragon-hunter, but there didn't seem to be anyone on board; allowing them the clearance they needed to land; where they'd be more capable than riding on their dragons. After a few seconds waiting for an ambush, they got nothing.

"Ye think they just left this here?" Gobber asked Stoick, slightly suspicious.

"I share your concern, old friend, I don't understand why they'd just leave a ship here unattended." Stoick said, with a serious tone.

Gobber put on a thoughtful face. "Nah, me neither." He decided, shrugging. "Still, we can't just leave this here with all the weapons." He continued, switching his axe for a more dexterous arm which he used to start taking out the bolts from the ballistae mountings.

Stoick nodded gruffly and ducked below decks to see what kind of things he could take from this vessel.

* * *

Hiccup roused Shadewrath from Toothless from slumber. "Guys, I think something's going on." He states.

Shadewrath awakens slowly, releasing a low growl that shakes the very earth they were standing on, getting a few surprised glances from the others.

Toothless just gets up calmly, happy to see Hiccup even though he was woken up from his sleep.

Their moment was interrupted as one of the lookouts rushed in. "Hiccup, Astrid! Thank Odin, I've been looking for you two; there's a fleet to the east, looks like 5 heavy battleships. Stoick and Gobber are busy, so that leaves you and the other dragon riders." He explained frantically.

Hiccup nodded, now with steely focus on the task.

Astrid reacted quite similarly "Hiccup, let's go get the others, we'll hit them before they even know what happened." She says, packing her axe away expertly; barely a brush could be heard as it went into the holster.

To his slight shame, Hiccup was temporarily stopped by his appreciation of how well she did that; his die-hard appreciation of her abilities still a thing.

Toothless shook his head with a knowing smile, before charging through his legs to forcibly get him on his back. "Toothless, what was that for?" Hiccup asked, with shock.

Toothless smirked, pumping his wings to get them airborne. **"Someone's a demi-dragon lovebird… Midnight."**

Hiccup winced at his all-too-accurate description, as well as his use of the name the god of Night gave him.

" **And you were good enough to captivate two Night Furies."** Shadewrath joins as he lifts off; juxtaposing his strength with his distraction from love.

"Why are you doing this…" Hiccup says a bit saddened that they would tease him in such a way.

Toothless and Shadewrath gave him a reassuring smile. **"We're just teasing you; we adore you really."** Toothless amends.

That gives Hiccup some calm as Astrid calls for Snotlout and the twins to form up, not being able to find Fishlegs around. Then he gets a bit worried. "Did you say 'adore'?" He says, getting his worries up again.

Toothless sighs. **"Another time, for now we've got to deal with whatever fleet that lookout was talking about."** Toothless reminds him.

Hiccup nods quietly; just content to let his two fury friends do the action while he recovered from whatever this was.

* * *

Those on deck of Drago's ships rushed around to arm up; they would have done this sooner, but it wasn't necessary in calm weather. Now that they had eyes on their quarry, however, they were getting ready.

Drago watched those on deck with barely any notice, before turning back towards Berk with a spyglass, smiling as he saw the conglomeration above Berk. "Ah… predictable Stoick; always one to go straight for the source of his people's concerns." He said, before shifting to the dragon riders. "You gave away the position of my quarry, though, and that's all I care about for the moment." He said packing away his spyglass.

Then he addressed his men "Come on! We must be ready for their arrival; load the ballistae and get your crossbows ready!" He roared, causing those around him to bear up their weapons in readiness or bear one of the many bola projectiles into the ballistae.

 **End of chapter.**

 **Sorry, can't believe i almost forgot about this part; THANK YOU FOR ALL MY REVIEWERS (on this story or others by me); your support is both critical and something I look forward to and I really hope I can hear more from you all in the future.**


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